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FEATURES

44 STAR WARS 40TH
ANNIVERSARY

We’re wasting no time in
celebrating four decades of
George Lucas’s epochal space
opera! Carrie Fisher, Jeremy
Bulloch and more help us
remember that long time ago.
Plus: mad stats, obscure
characters and... 1937.

60 THE STAR WARS
MARVEL COMIC

Marvel legend Roy Thomas
gives the surprising story of
how the company adapted the
film - before it hit cinemas.

64 LARA PULVER

The Sherlock star going
Underworld for Blood Wars.

66 THE EXPANSE

War is coming in the second
season of the futuristic show.

70 LEGION

X-Men! On the telly!

74 GOTHAM

It’s season three of the Bat
prequel show and Bruce Wayne
is getting closer to his destiny...

78 AGENTS OF
SHIELD

Our trusty agents step into
Ghost Rider’s line of fire.

82 SPLIT

M Night Syamalan’s new movie
stars James McAvoy as a guy
with a lot of personality...

86 STEPHEN BAXTER

The author tells us what it feels
like to be following in the direct
steps of HG Wells.

88 TWIN PEAKS

The secret history revealed.

► RED ALERT (NEWS)

9 THE WHITE KING

We check out the new fantasy.

20 KONG: SKULL
ISLAND

Does watching the trailer make
SFXers want to beat their chests?

► FIRST CONTACT

30 YOUR LETTERS

On Fantastic Beasts, Arrival,
Crazyhead and... The Good Place"?

34WISHLIST

Game Of Thrones won’t be gone
long - and when it returns...

► REVIEWS

94 ROGUE ONE: A STAR
WARS STORY

The One you’ve been waiting for.
Time for the SFX verdict.

98 BLAIR WITCH

should they have gone down to
the woods again? We say...

► VIEWSCREEN

120 WESTWORLD

Our reviewer climbs off his horse
and tells us his views...

►REGULARS

38 OPINION

Author Greg Bear on Mars. Not
literally. Just writing about it.

40 BOOK CLUB

Lila Bowen discusses Tailchaser's
Songhy Tad Williams.

129 BLASTERMIND

How much can you remember
about 1977? Yep, that year.

130 TOTAL RECALL

The ed on why the opening scene
of JJ’s Star Trek rocks.

SUBSCRIBE
TO SFX!

Check out p42 for details

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 5

Janua ry 2017

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^ Vectis Auctions, Fleck Way, Thornaby, 10.30am

check www.vectis.co.uk for updates

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Issue283

TheEdZom

RantsStRaves

INSIDE THE SFXHIVE MIND

RICHARD EDWARDS

EDITOR

RAVES

^ Belatedly saw
Arrival and it was
one of my fave
films of 2016 - a
Hollywood sci-fi
movie that makes you think.

^ Our feature on The Expanse
(p66) persuaded me to belatedly
watch season one - and it’s ace.

^ I’m intrigued to see what Noah
Hawley does with the X-Men
universe in Legion.

IAN BERRIMAN

REVIEWS EDITOR

RAVES

^ Had a great day
on-set for Duncan
Jones’s new film
Mute, in Berlin.

Really looking
forward to it.

^ Delighted that the label
Finders Keepers are releasing
music from The Moomins.

Classic Who fans, fancy some
belly laughs? Then point your
browser at http://bit.ly/k9titles.

RUSSELL LEWIN
PRODUCTION EDITOR

RAVES

^ Number of
cinemas I visited for
first time in 2016:

12. UK running
total: 88. Onward!

^ As much as I enjoy Gareth
Roberts’s tweets, how does he
get time to do any work?!
RANTS

-> Getting a cold just before the
work Christmas party. Then not
being able to go and see Moana.

CLIFF NEWMAN

ART EDITOR

RAVES

^ My expectations
of Westworld were
high and the
Jurassic Park-
Memento -Western
didn’t disappoint. An
excellent re-imagining of a
classic. I’m already looking
forward to season two.

^ The Spider-Man: Homecoming
trailer is great. My Spidey-senses
are all a tingle.

SARAH DOBBS

WRITER

RAVES

A The Ghostbusters
Blu-ray is amazing.

The film looks
incredible -
particularly the black-bar
breaking ghosts! - and there are
so many extras I’ll still be
watching them next Christmas.
RANTS

^ That trailer for The Mummy
looks dodgy. Might just watch
the Karloff one again instead.

NICK SETCHFIELD

FEATURES EDITOR

RAVES

^ Pleased to
discover Spider-
Man will have
Ditko-style
underarm webbing in
Homecoming. Yes, deodorant’s
a wonderful thing, but I always
loved that creepy-cool early
’60s visual.

^ Doug Jones is a great pick to
play the new alien science officer
in Star Trek: Discovery.

JOSH WINNING

NEWS EDITOR

RAVES

^ Supergirl season
two is ace. Missing
Cat but loving
the new HQ and ^
cast additions. Plus,

Alex, sob.

A Spider-Man: Homecoming
trailer is predictably super.
Welcome back, Spidey!

RANTS

^ Westworld not returning until
2018?! Does not compute!

JONATHAN COATES

ART EDITOR

RAVES

^ It’s been around
for a while but I
rediscovered this
excellent Wes
Anderson X-Men parody off the
back of the Christmas H&M
advert. Really well done:
http : //bit .ly/sfx we s .

^ Maybe it’s the suit, or the way
he moves, but the new Spidey
trailer kinda reminds me of the
’70s TV series, which I loved.

WILL SALMON

SPECIALS EDITOR

RAVES

A Happy new year!

Doctor Who and
Twin Peaks are
back in the next
few months. 2017 is
already looking brighter.

^ I rather like Terry Moore’s
new comic. Motor Girl. It’s like £
gentler Love St Rockets.

RANTS

^ Negan. Negan Negan Negan.
Please, go away, you’re boring.

MIRIAM McDonald

WRITER

RANTS

A Why are so many
comic adaptations
on telly ultimately
so disappointing? The
Flash has disappeared up its own
alternate history. Legends Of
Tomorrow is tedious. Supergirl
and Jessica Jones not much
better. Thank goodness Wonder
Woman is getting a movie; I
dread to think what would happen
to her on the small screen.

O Facebook Facebook.com/SFXmagazine • O Twitter @SFXmagazine

H appy new year!

It’s an old greetings card cliche that “life
begins at 40” and as Star Wars approaches
its fifth decade, it’s arguably healthier than it’s ever
been - a new movie every year (read our review of the
brilliant Rogue One on p94), a TV series, an empire
of books and comics expanding the mythology of a
galaxy far, far away... These are exciting times.

So we’re starting the birthday celebrations early,
with a massive feature (p44) looking back on 40
years of a franchise that’s shaped popular culture
like no other. We hear from Carrie “Princess Leia”
Fisher, Jeremy “Boba Fett” Bulloch and uber-fan Steve
Sansweet, trace the history of Star Wars, look back at
Marvel’s original Star Wars comic, and even give some
love to the oft- overlooked Prune Face.

Back on planet Earth, we’ve got loads of comic book-
inspired TV action: we grill one of the brains behind
Legion, an X-Men story like nothing you’ve seen
before (p70); we find out what’s in store for the proto-
Commissioner Gordon in Gotham (p74); and get the
skinny on how Ghost Rider’s going to impact Marvel’s
Agents Of SHIELD (p78).

We’ll have lots more Star Wars coverage in 2017,
plus Spider-Man: Homecoming, Stranger Things 2, Alien:
Covenant and more. Why not subscribe to SEX to make
sure you stay ahead of the action - details on p42.

Richard Edwards, Editor
@RichDEdwards

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 7

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FUTURE SHOCK ii

Red Alert heads on set to salute

, th^ year’s most prescient sci-fi...^^^

* *v ^

nestled in the Hungarian capital of
Budapest, a giant picture of Jonathan
Pryce looms large. No, the High Sparrow has
not returned to grace the next season of Game
Of Thrones. Rather, Pryce’s Colonel Fitz is one
of the key figures in new movie The White King,
a dystopian tale that marks the directorial
debut of husband-and-wife team Alex
Helfrecht and Jorg Tittel.

Based on the 2005 book by Hungarian
author Gyorgy Dragoman, which was set in a
totalitarian state reminiscent of Ceausescu-era
Romania, the writer- directors have transposed
the action to the 21st century. Not that you’d
immediately know it. Staged in an unnamed
country, known only as the Homeland, it
seemingly belongs to a bygone era, explaining
why Helfrecht dubs the film “a historical
drama set in the future”.

With extras dressed in drab military
uniforms that belong to nowhere in particular,
the most disconcerting sight is the swastika-
like yellow pitchfork symbol. “That’s the fiag of
the Homeland - the country’s fiag,” explains
Helfrecht. “It’s ruled by the military. We don’t
see them too much but we see them in the
planes and the drones that fiy overhead; ^

^ Highlights ® i

DANCING
WITH THE
DEVIL

^ A spot of exorcise
with new horror
Incarnate.

X-FILES:
FIRST CLASS

^ Mulder and
Scully head back
to high school.

A- for effort.

FEMALE OF
THE SPECIES

^ The Wasp and
the other Hawkeye
take centre stage in
new Marvel series.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 9

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfic

SCI-FACT! The android used in The White King is a reai android (caiied Sophia) shipped in especiaiiy for the fiim.

44 It’s about a boy’s
love for his father
and his father
being taken away
from him

everything is peripheral visually. You get the
feeling it’s a blanket of oppression.”

With its dictatorship celebrating the 30th
anniversary of its independence, The White
King recalls George Orwell’s classic novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four - with its omnipotent
CCTV-surveillance, rationing and its very own
Big Brother-style figure, the eponymous leader
seen only as a giant statue bestriding the land.
But unlike Orwell’s Winston Smith,
Dragoman’s hero is a 12 -year- old boy - Djata
(Lorenzo Allchurch).

When the story begins, Djata loses his father
Peter (Ross Partridge), imprisoned in a gulag
for political dissent. “It really is about family
versus government,” says Tittel. “It’s about a
boy’s love for his father and his father being
taken away from him - that allows him to grow
and realise the world he lives in. He has to
decide whether he wants to fight for the family
and make a change.” Adds Helfrecht: “It’s
really about, ‘How do people behave under
duress inside a regime?”’

Joining Djata in this fight is his young
mother Hannah (Agyness Deyn), who finds
that her in-laws - Pryce’s Colonel Fitz and
Fiona Shaw’s Kathrin - are too entrenched in
the Homeland hierarchy to reveal where their
son has been imprisoned. “As soon as Peter is
taken away, she has to stand up and protect
herself, her son, their morals as a family,”
reveals Deyn, dressed in a grey blouse and blue
skirt. “She goes from being crouched on the
ground to standing up.”

Pryce, who famously starred in Terry
Gilliam’s own Orwellian fantasy B razz'/,
immediately acknowledges the film’s political
resonances. ‘You look at this dystopian society
and you look at a society that has built barriers
and walls, led by this seemingly benign
dictatorship,” he says. “And they’re fed lies and
distortions and you can’t help but think... I’m
not saying Britain will end up in cities torn
down and we’ll become an agrarian society, but
it’s an example of how a
society is sublimated.”

Indeed, the timing
of The White King
couldn’t be more

acute. The film ^

received its world
premiere at the

Edinburgh International Film Festival just days
before Britons voted to leave the European
Union. “In the Q&A in Edinburgh,” says Pryce,
“I said as a warning: ‘If you imagine that statue
in the film being replaced by a statue of Nigel
Farage holding aloft a pint of beer!”’

Back on set, sitting calmly as the crew reset
the lights, Fiona Shaw, the Irish actress famed
for playing Harry Potter’s aunt, concurs, noting
the film is about the way we can give in to
regimes. “The scene we’re doing now... if you
have to make a choice between the system and
[your] son, then you’re in trouble,” she says.
“The same thing happened in Ireland with the
Catholic Church - people handed over their
rational judgement to a church. It’s an
absolutely catastrophic thing to do.”

Shot entirely on location in Hungary -
including a former air force base and along the
banks of the Danube - Tittel is very clear about
the approach he and Helfrecht wanted when it
came to the tone. “I’m a huge Paul Verhoeven
fan but we didn’t want to go Paul Verhoeven
with it, where everything becomes satirical,” he
says. “We didn’t want to veer into caricature;
we wanted to create something that feels real.”

Certainly, The White King is subtle with its
nods to future tech (which are largely hidden
from plain view). ‘You have a radio -phone
which is a propaganda device,” explains Tittel.
“It looks like an Apple product. Not that we’re
critical of Siri in any way!” (Curiously, one of
the crew members is wearing a t-shirt that
says: “Thank you Steve Jobs.”) “But it’s about
more than machines, says Deyn: “I think it’s
about the indestructibility
of the soul.” €>

10 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

The White King opens in
cinemas on 27
January and is
released on
DVD on 30
January. It's
reviewed on
page 103.

association with

BIG CHIEF

I STUDIOS LTQ

www.bigchiefstudios.co.uk

THE PRYCE IS RIGHT

Chatting to Jonathan Pryce
on set...

What kind of a man is the coionei?

^ It’s one thing when you read it on the
page, but I find that my views of who I’m
playing change over the course of the
shoot. He’s retired during the course of
the film, but he’s still a functioning colonel
who supposedly had some power, but
obviously not enough to get his son back
from wherever they’ve taken him. I’m still
finding out about him. He’s a powerful
military man - but not powerful enough,
is the fiim a mix between dystopian
drama and sci-fi?

^ It’s definitely a drama but the society’s
dystopian, so... I don’t know how brutal
the film itself will turn out to be, but it’s a
look at a brutal society. I imagine the film
ultimately will be quite dark, but because
you’re seeing it through the eyes of a
12-year-old boy, it’s going to be leavened
by that. You see him interact with his
mates, the naughty boys,
is it quite different working on
something as independent as this after
Game Of Thrones?

I’ve just come from another independent
film, which was shot in Canada, and
they’re great to do. On Game Of Thrones,
the amount of commitment from people
working on it was incredible. It felt big
because when there are big sets these
days it’s often just CGI, but when they
said, “Do you want to come and look at
the throne room?” it was this vast, huge
building. It’s bigger than most sound
stages. They built the actual thing, it’s
massive. Then the independent films, the
recent ones I’ve made. Listen Up Philip
and The Healer, they’re very low-budget,
shot very fast. The contrast is great.

How has it been working with first-time
directors?

^ Ah, the directors with an “S”! They have
been great. It’s day one and I’ve not
wanted to kill them! I hadn’t met Jorg, but
I’d met Alex before I arrived. It’s
interesting. I liked the script very much
and that’s about it, really. They obviously
have no track record! I liked the idea of it.
It’s a quite powerful script.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 11

BedMert

Josh Holloway has revealed that season two of Colony will be even darker than the first.

SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE

ATTACK THE BLOC

The Bowman family are torn apart
in season two...

Like your sci-fi with a dose of

real-world allegory? Well, look no
further than smart sci-fi drama Colony,
which returns for its second season this month.
Set in a near-future Los Angeles that’s been
occupied by extraterrestrials, the show’s new
season will, according co- creators Carlton
Cuse (Lost) and Ryan Condal, dive deeper into
what happens to humanity confined to blocs
under military occupation. It’ll be, in a word,
even more epic.

“This season has 150 per cent more sci-fi
stuff than we did last year,” Condal tells Red
Alert. “Now, I qualify that by saying for me a
lot of sci-fi is about ideas versus seeing
interstellar battles. But there has been a lot
of curiosity about [seeing the mysterious
“Raps”] from our fans, and we’ve always
wanted to get into that, but we wanted to
create a baseline for the show that didn’t make
people feel they had to buy into a science
fiction show in order to get behind it. We
wanted to serve up a family drama that played
like a John le Carre novel with a crazy sci-fi
backdrop. Now it feels like we accomplished
that and we’re over that hurdle.”

Following the family of Katie (Sarah Wayne
Callies) and Will Bowman (Josh Holloway),
season two finds the couple separated as Will
looks for their missing son in the heavily
fortified Santa Monica bloc, while Katie
struggles in the Los Angles bloc with the

outcome of her Resistance work.

Condal teases: “We will see Will
running around in Santa Monica a
good bit. But we also have a whole
story we are telling outside the main
walls of the Los Angeles colony. Part of
our edict, as far as the sci-fi stuff, was to
open up the world more. So we are showing
more of what the world looks like, not just
outside the LA colony, but the west coast and
the larger geography to get a sense of what this
whole [occupation] looks like.”

However, many of the most important
conflicts this season will happen on a more
intimate front, as the contingent of humans
(Proxys) assisting the alien overlords starts
tightening their screws on the resisting
sections of humanity. “It’s about the nature of
extremes,” Condal says. “You have an extreme
change of balance with a military occupation,
and in order to maintain order, you have a more
extreme form of law enforcement and
government than everybody is used to. And
then that results in a Resistance movement,
and that’s countered with more extremity. It’s
increasing battles of extremism.”

Citing real historical events that inspired the
series’ creation, Condal says, “When the Berlin
Wall finally came down, the worst days in East
Germany were just before it fell. I read the
statistic that under Stalin’s Russia, one in four
thousand people were spying against their own
people. Under Hitler’s Germany, it was one in
two thousand. In East Germany, it was one in
every 63 people who were informing on
friends, family or neighbours. It was the result
of the increasing darkness of the state, which is
what we are seeing play out this season.”

He adds: “We are also seeing a more extreme
version of the resistance. Last year, we had a
point of view into the main resistance with
Broussard (Tory Kittles) and Katie’s cell. This
year, we do not have a POV into it, so as the
audience you will be experiencing this more
propaganda driven resistance movement
purely from the outside as the citizens of LA
are too.” ®

12 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

BedAleirt

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 13

AERIAL

ASSAULT

SCI-FI TV
ROUND UP

Animated
comedy series
Final Space -
produced by
Conan O’Brien and
following an
astronaut named
Gary - will debut
in 2018.

^ Netflix
has

renewed
Luke
Cage for
a second
season.

-> Westworld
won’t return for
a second season
until 2018.

The Inhumans
TV series will
be exec produced
by Iron Fist’s
Scott Buck.

^ Leftovers season
three will air in
April 2017.

-> Senses will
return for a second
season on Netflix
on 5 May 2017.

Doug Jones
(Hellboy) has
joined Star Trek:
Discovery as an
alien. Meanwhile,
Michelle Yeoh will
play Starfleet
Captain Georgiou.

Anne Rice is
planning a Vampire
Lestat TV series
now that she has
the rights to the
character back.

^ Parker Posey
has joined the cast
of the Lost In
Space remake.
She’ll play Dr
Smith, the
character originally
played by
Jonathan Harris.

Devilment’s album, Devilment II - The
Mephisto Waltzes, is out now via Nuclear
Blast. Cradle Of Filth’s new album is
coming out in 2017.

DANI FILTH

THE CRADLE OF FILTH AND
DEVILMENT VOCALIST ON HIS
GENRE FAVOURITES...

First SF/fantasy film you saw

^ On Thursday nights BBC Two used to
run a sci-fi or monster movie. I think the
one that really stuck with me was Alien.
Especially the chestburster scene with
John Hurt. That’s a shocking moment as
a youth.

Favourite SF/fantasy film

^ Everybody says Star Wars but it’s
brilliant. It’s the whole reminiscing
about when you discovered it and
buying toys. Growing up, it was
just everywhere. I used to get
annuals for Christmas and
they’d have all these weird and
wonderful stories involving
Princess Leia and Darth Vader
meeting on planets and you’d
go: ‘They’re enemies!” Because
you never knew anything
anything about politics back
then. You didn’t realise there
were Switzerlands in space.

Favourite SF/fantasy
comic

^ I used to be really into
2000 AD. Judge Dredd,

Judge Anderson - being
psychic, she used to fight the
Dark Judges. The last movie,

Dredd, was awesome and I read
somewhere that they’re going to expand
on the Judge Anderson/Judge Dredd
thing and bring in the Dark Judges [in a
sequel]. That’d be incredible.

SF/fantasy guilty pleasure
^ Blake’s 7. I rewatched a few episodes
recently and suddenly realised how
bloody awful it was. It was probably great
when you were young. Buck Rogers I used
to love, too, if not just for Wilma Deering.
Everybody grew up on stuff like that, but
when you revisit it it looks really shabby.

DON’T QUOTE ME

“IF IT’S UP TO JAMES GUNN

YOU’RE GOING TO SEE A GROOTY
OCKET MOVIE AFTER AVENGERS:

ROCKET MOVIE AFTER AVENGER.
INFINITY WAR. I THINK THAT’S
HIGHLY POSSIBLE.”

Vin Diesel is keen on a super-smash-’em-up.

Katie (Sarah Wayne

Callies) finds the

toughest job is family

BedAkrt

Incarnate co-stars Games Of Thrones^s Melisandre (Carice Van Houten) and Gotham^s Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz).

pitched to me as The Exorcist meets Inception.
Then I threw in a twist of Blade Runner.”

INCARNATE

Aaron Eckhart turns
exorcist for Mysterious
Island director

. Red Alert gets
the scoop

REVENGE IS A DRIVING FORCE

O Remember how angry Aaron Eckhart
got when Harvey Dent’s girlfriend was
killed in The Dark Knight? This time, he plays a
character who loses his entire family... “He’s
playing a really messed-up character,” says
Peyton, “who’s lived through some serious
trauma. He cares about one thing - avenging
[his family’s] deaths. But through that process,
he starts to protect the people who are also in
the line of fire... So there’s some pretty intense
acting from Mr Eckhart.”

THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS’
EXORCISM MOVIE

I With the original Exorcist now a weekly
TV series, there’s no denying the
big-screen genre it spawned could stand
to shed a trope or two. That’s
something filmmaker Brad Peyton
sought to address in his latest
thriller. “This is not a faith-based
exorcism movie,” the director tells
Red Alert. “In this world, priests
oftentimes fail at exorcisms.

So when they fail, they’ll go find
an Incarnate. Those people are
the badasses that you bring in
when you really need to get rid
of a demon.”

SCI-FI SUPERCEDES
FANTASY

O In crafting the film,
Peyton called on his
favourite genre for
inspiration. “My favourite
horror movie is probably
Alien, and I think it’s
because I love sci-fi so
much,” he says. “What’s
fantastic about horror
is that by the nature of
it it can cross-genre
pollinate so easily...

We’re doing an
exorcism movie
that’s more
technology/
science based
than faith based.

That’s a big idea
that I have not
seen. Initially, it was

ITS PG-13 SHOULDN’T SCARE YOU

O Peyton knows how much American
horror fans hate the dreaded PG-13
rating, so... “I say this with no hyperbole
and no smoke-blowing — this is the
scariest PG-13 movie I’ve ever fucking
seen,” he assures us. “It’s such a
process to get the rating. Because
it was so dark and so tense it
was really hard to get out of the
R. Yet I was really driven to
make a movie that teenagers
could see.”

AARON ECKHART’S
DEMON HUNTER
COULD RETURN

O “Because of the
world we set up
and the fact that
Aaron’s title is
‘Incarnate’,” says
Pe3^on, “you can
explore and find other
Incarnates or find
Aaron in further
adventures down the
road. It’s all about if
people want more. But
for me it just comes
from a natural
extension of trying to
build out the most
interesting three-
dimensional world that
the characters inhabit. So
the answer is yes! We
could do lots more.” ^

Incarnate will be released
in the UK in 2017.

14 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfic

SCI-FACT!

Season two introduces the Hunter's Moon, a bar which caters to Mundanes and Downworiders.

TV EXCLUSIVE

THROWING SHADE

Dark days are ahead in ’ refreshed second season

over on Shadowhunters. Based on the
bestselling Mortn/ Instruments novels
by Cassandra Clare, the TV series follows
college student Clary Fray (Katherine
McNamara), who learns she comes from a long
line of Shadowhunters - human-angel hybrids
sworn to protect mankind from demons and
the forces of evil. For the upcoming second
season, the keys to the kingdom have been
passed to new showrunners Todd Slavkin and
Darren Swimmer (Smallville, Defiance), who
took past criticisms and accolades into
consideration, and turned to the source
material for inspiration on where to go next.

“We felt like the books, and the tone of the
books, sometimes got a tad lost in the rush to
get through the plot- driven story,” Slavkin
explains about the previous season. “The room

44 We felt like the
tone of the books
sometimes got a
tad lost 99

for character growth and showing the heroes’
journeys through the eyes of not just Clary,
but Alec (Matthew Daddario) and Jace
(Dominic Sherwood) and Simon (Alberto
Rosende) - that was totally exciting for us. It
felt like the path to go on, as opposed to
mission of the week.”

The season one finale culminated with Clary
reviving her mother Jocelyn (Maxim Roy) and
Jace siding with the malevolent Valentine
(Alan Van Sprang). When the show returns.
Clary and the Shadowhunters are still reeling
from those events.

“In season two, Jace’s whereabouts and
intentions are unknown, which is even more of
an issue with our group of Shadowhunters,”
says Swimmer. “Clary is in a place
where she needs to redefine what
her role is in the Shadowhunters’

Institute, as well as what her
relationship with her mom is going
to be moving forward. Then we
have Alec and Magnus (Harry
Shum Jr), who kicked off their
relationship with a bit of a
bang and now have to retrace
their steps and find out where
they are really headed.”

Clary may be a quick study, but she’s still a
rookie when it comes to magic. The producers
sought to slow her development down and
delve into what it truly means to be a
Shadowhunter. “We knew there was more to
her training that we could mine,” Slavkin
offers. “In season two, there’s a huge reveal
that she has this ability to create runes that
people have never seen before. That really
motivates her journey of self-discovery.”

Meanwhile, Valentine and his army of
Shadowhunters remain the primary threats in
this dangerous universe. It’s something that
not only concerns Clary and her friends, but
all of the Shadow World’s supernatural
factions. “That’s a big part of season two,”
Swimmer concludes. “Difficult times are
when alliances are tested the most. With
the danger of an enemy like

Valentine out there, that’s when
the stress and the strain of the
. progress that’s happened
k between all the
^ Downworlder groups
comes to a head.” ®

Shadowhunters season two
will air early this year.

16 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

SCI-FACT

uffield previously played young Ghost in Pathfinder andi Callan in Warcraft.

THE PATH AHEAD

O “I think Beyond is about Holden finding exactly where he
belongs and what that means. A big part of our show isn’t him just
chasing his abilities and saving the world. He’s a normal kid and
just wants his life back. He figures out where he can fit in with
school and life, with friends and family. Who do I connect with and
can I just stay there? You see him piece himself back together.”

O “The Matthews family is closely knit so it’s a real dilemma that
they lost their son indefinitely. To then have their son reawaken
and be fine, puts strain back on the family. We touch on the family
bonds and how they grow and change as they grow up.”

Beyond airs on Freeform in the US. A UK air date is TBC.

A MAN OUT OF TIME

O ‘You watch the pilot and you have so many questions like
Holden does. So whenever there’s a time when he can get an
answer, he’s throwing himself into that. The pace of that really
drives the action. You are never bored.”

FAMILY TIES

O “Holden Matthews closes his eyes when he’s 13 and wakes up at
age 25. You see him find himself in a completely new world. His
best friend, brother and family have changed so dramatically over a
dozen years. When he goes to give his trust to them again they
may, or may not, be the people he should be trusting.”

MYSTERY MAN

OUTSIDE INFLUENCES

O “There are also new characters, whether they come to give him
answers or put him in harm’s way. They are attracted by where
he’s been, his abilities, or what he’s going to do with his life from
this moment on.” ^

EedAlm

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SCI-FACT! Garcia: “There are tons of details sprinkled throughout for fans. You'll learn a lot more about Mr X!”

AUTHOR EXCLUSIVE

Like this, but
shorter, and with
bad hair and spots.

THE TRUTH
IS IN HERE

What were Mulder and Scully

like as teenagers? Find out in

books.

new

always a conspiracy theorist? Until now, these were
questions nobody could answer. However - with
the blessing oiX-Files creator Chris Carter - authors Kami
Garcia and Jonathan Maberry have filled in the blanks in
two official novels.

Garcia’s Agent Of Chaos follows teenage Mulder in 1979
as he finds himself drawn into the mystery of some missing
children, while Maberry’s DeviVs Advocate introduces us to
young Scully, who looks into a series of killings that seem to
have been committed by an angel.

“I was editing X-Fz7es anthologies for IDW Publishing
and thought that it would be fun to do some stories about
Fox Mulder as a teen,” Maberry tells Red Alert of the origins
of the new books. “I invited my friend Kami Garcia to write
a young Mulder story for Volume 2, The X-Files: The Truth
Is Out There, and she really knocked it out of the park with
‘Black Hole Son’. It proved that there was a lot of creative
storytelling opportunity. So Kami and I cooked up the idea
of a novel series.”

Garcia was happy to take part. “I love the idea of looking
at a character like Fox Mulder as an adult and reverse-
engineering his psyche to figure out what made him the
man he became,” she says.

It’s the same for I5-year-old Scully, too, in DeviVs
Advocate. “In the show it alludes to the fact that Scully
used to believe but something happened that shifted her
into the sceptic camp,” says Maberry. “That’s the story
I wrote. These books are official backstory. We did our

homework. Everything we did
squares with the overall history
of The X-Files.”

But despite the fact that Mulder
and Scully never knew each other
before the show’s first episode, the
two characters do almost interact in
these pages. “There’s one big Easter
egg that turned into a crossover: the
fictional town of Craiger, Maryland that was used on the
show,” Garcia explains. ‘Tn Agent Of Chaos, Mulder visits
Craiger [where Scully lives!] during his investigation. And
members of the Syndicate make appearances in both books...”

Could this be the start of a whole new franchise of Young
Agents stories, then? The authors are hopeful. “There’s so
much to tell about Dana’s journey,” says Maberry. Garcia
adds, “If fans love these books and support them, we can
definitely write more.” Watch this space... €>

The X-Files Origins books, published by Atom, are out now.

DON’T QUOTE ME

“WE LOVE ANIMATRONICS AND
WE’RE TRYING TO DO AS MUCH
WITH THEM AS POSSIBLE. I THINK
ANIMATRONICS BRING SOUL AND
REALITY TO IT.”

JA Bayona is going old school with Jurassic World 2.

AERIAL

ASSAULT

SCI-FI TV
ROUND UP

^ Dirk Gently’s
Holistic Detective
Agency has been
renewed for a
second season
of sleuthing.

^ Josh Friedman’s
TV adaptation of
Snowpiercer has
been snapped up
by TNT network
in the US. No UK
channel has been
confirmed yet.

^ iZombie season
three will air in
the US
from 4
April
2017, and
should
arrive on
Netflix UK
shortly after that.

Sean Astin has
signed on to
season two of
Stranger Things.

DC’s Powerless
will air on NBC
in the US from
2 February.

John

Barrowman has
been meeting with
the BBC - could
he be discussing
a new series of
Torchwood?

^ Peter Capaldi
has revealed that
he’s been told it’s
his choice if he
wants to return
for series 11 of
Doctor Who.

^ Came Of
Thrones actor
Peter Vaughan
passed away on
6 December.

^ JJ Abrams
will produce
space-set series
Clare for HBO.

18 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

REX (1)

ultimate Movie Collectables J

London - Los Angeles

17^n FEBRUARY

The online auction will be held 6”^ - 1 7'*^ February

• More than 200 lots of original costumes and
props from the production of G.I.Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

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FneezeFiwne

Top trailers dissected

Kong will go up against Godzilla in 2020 for super-smackdown, uh, Kong Vs Godzilla.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

He smashes! He screams! He strolls!

“Bad Moon Rising” plays as a bored-looking ; Yep, that’d be Skull Island. It looks scary as ; That includes Captain James Conrad (Tom

Lieutenant Colonel Packard (Samuel L Jackson) ; heck so, naturally, we’re going there with a team ; Hiddleston), who thinks that dropping bombs to
is shown a slideshow of a South Pacific island. ; of explorers and soldiers. ; map the island might not be the greatest idea.

There’s also photojournalist Weaver (Brie
Larson), who doubles as a peace activist. Looks
like she’ll be this movie’s Ann Darrow.

“Is that a monkey?” Big surprise, something
doesn’t like being bombed by visitors and sets
about swatting helicopters like flies using trees.

That something turns out to be Kong, who
rules Skull Island. He shows the soldiers who’s
boss by smashing their choppers together.

And in one seriously epic shot, he comes
face-to-snout with Lieutenant Colonel Packard
through a curtain of fire. Talk about badass.

“I’m sorry for your men,” Bill Randa (John
Goodman) tells Packard. As the leader of the
expedition, he’s clearly got his own agenda.

Randa wants to take back “proof that
monsters exist”, but first the team will have to
deal with some not-to-be-messed-with locals.

■ i

- / : •

•I - L Jg

-=*4

^ But who’s this? John C Reilly’s apparently
chummy with the natives and knows a thing or
two about Kong (“He’s king around here”).

Including the fact that Kong isn’t the only
giant thing on the island - there are also “devils
from below”, including humungo arachnids.

i But that’s okay because it seems Kong’s a pal
; - to Conrad and Weaver at least, who are the
i only ones we’re meant to care about anyway.

— The Buzz

S RICH I love the ’70s I JOSH Peter Jackson’s

setting, the look of HV ^ Kong was handsome if

Kong and the idea of 1 jV \oooong. Skull Island

him joining forces with / ^ ^ looks snappier and
the humans, though I really hope snippier, with loads of monsters,
it doesn’t deteriorate into generic Not sure about John C Reilly’s
monster-on-monster action. I Junnanji-Wke hippie, though.

RHIAN Quite like to go IAN Feels like a

and see this now! Not particularly dimwitted

completely convinced 1 Jurassic Park seque\,

' V by the “Skull Crawlers”, / not a Kong movie,

but apart from that it looks like a Combining Kong with
good combination of humour and contemporary action and ’70s
action. Plus Tom Hiddleston! rock feels horribly clashing.

20 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

n association with

i BIG CHIEF

t STUDIOS LTQ

www.bigchiefstudios.co.uk

BedAleirt

SCI-FACT! The Walking DeacPs Steven Yeun and Flight Of The Conchords' Rhys Darby both supply voices for Voltron.

VIC JAMES

MEET THE
DOCUMENTARY
FILMMAKER BEHIND
GILDED CAGE

Describe the world of Gilded Cage...

A It’s set in a contemporary Britain
ruled by a magically gifted aristocracy,
the Equals. All unskilled people must
perform a decade of service, either in
grim slavetowns or on one of the
glittering Equal estates.

Who are your protagonists?

A Abi is 18 and the classic big sister;
smart and resourceful, but a little too
confident in her own abilities. She
must navigate a grand estate, while
her laid-back brother Luke, who’s
17, is forced to grow up fast when
separated from his family and sent
to a slavetown.

What was the initial inspiration?

A There’s a wall along the A31 that’s
one of the longest in Britain. It encircles
a stately home with grounds so large
you can’t see the house from the road.
We drove along the wall often en route
to childhood holidays, and I always
used to wonder what it was keeping
out - or in. The other major inspiration
was a BBC Two series
I produced. The
Superrich And Us.

The economics of
wealth inequality are
staggering; at this
moment in history,
the power that wealth
gives the rich is almost
like magic.

The book was
originally available
online via Wattpad. Is
this version different?

A I used Wattpad as a
way of forcing myself to complete a
first draft. It’s evolved a great deal since
then. The same events happen to the
same people in the same order, but
that’s about it!

Gilded Cage is pubiished by Pan on
26 January.

SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE

The rebooted

is back for a second season

So young and full of
energy, we feel tired
just looking at them.

GILDED

caGE

VIC JAMES

in deep -space limbo, a certain giant
robot is back on our screens this month
in a second season of Voltron: Legendary
Defender. A reboot of the popular ’80s cartoon,
it’s the story of a group of kids who pilot five
robot lions, which join together to become the
eponymous automaton.

‘Tt somehow resonated with a pretty huge
audience,” executive producer Lauren
Montgomery tells Red Alert. ‘T think it’s partly
because there’s a pretty cool robot made out of
these big awesome lions, but there’s the aspect
that there isn’t one specific hero. They all had
to work together to make that thing work.”

‘Tt’s this weird product of its time,” laughs
fellow executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos.
‘Tt’s nutty, but it made such an impression.”
While the basic premise of the show remains
the same, there have been some tweaks to the
format: Sven is now Shiro, Pidge is [potential
spoiler if you’re yet to see season one] now a
girl, and some elements of a less enlightened
time have been corrected.

‘There’s scenes where Princess Allura is just
kind of thrown over Goran’s knee and spanked,”
says Montgomery. ‘And a lot of scenes where
it’s all about the guys wanting to marry Allura.

Times have evolved, so there were things we
had to change to fit in with more modern times,
and take a little bit of the sexism out.”

Like Battle Of The Planets, the ’80s Voltron
was lifted from Japanese cartoons, with the
stories reworked and redubbed. As well as
looking back to the US version they grew up
with, the makers of the new Voltron also took
inspiration from the Japanese source material.

“Not all of [the anime] is appropriate,” Dos
Santos explains, “but even though some of the
themes are still too heavy for us to air on this
show, it had a clear, cohesive storyline, and you
understood every character’s motivations.”

The new Voltron has another advantage over
its predecessor, in that it’s not just limited to
standalone stories of the week. “Netfiix have
been saying the more serialisation the better,”
says Dos Santos. “Binge watching is the thing,
they want people to follow the story through
and stay for the next one. We’ve known for a
while that we were getting a season two, so we
could pepper things in early that we knew
could pay off in season two. That’s just a luxury
we’d not be afforded in network TV at all.” €>

Voltron’s second season comes to Netfiix on
20 January.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 21

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SCI-FACT!

According to the rumour mill, Olivia (Marie Avgeropoulos) could fall pregnant this season.

In The lOO’s fourth season, things are getting even more dangerous...

story where Noah knew that the world
was going to end, so who is he going to
tell?” Jason Rothenberg, exec producer and
showrunner of The 100, tells Red Alert. “And
when the world found out, they wanted the ark
for themselves... so we’ll lean into that
metaphor a little bit this season.”

He’s not overstating things, either.
Unrelenting in its threats. The iOO’s fourth
season brings with it the promise of nuclear
radiation, which will make the planet
uninhabitable within six months for 100 leader
Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), the Grounders
and the Arkadia survivors. But will the last
remnants of humanity figure out a solution?

44 We tested the
limits of how far
we could stretch
the universe 99

22 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

“Obviously, we set up a big problem this
season in the finale,” Rothenberg says. “So right
away, they have to deal with it. We also won’t
forget anything that happened before. I like to
make sure we don’t drop threads as much as
possible. We did things last season that are
intense and that will follow these characters in
their emotional lives forever.”

In particular, Clarke lost Lexa (Alycia
Debnam- Carey, now in Fear The Walking
Dead), the Grounder Commander and her
lover, in season three, which caused fan uproar.
As to whether a new romance
could bloom this season for
Clarke, Rothenberg says, “She’s
had two loves in three seasons
and they didn’t end very
well. She lost her soul
mate in Lexa, so she’s
not ready to jump into
another relationship.

But at the end of the day,

Clarke’s an 18-year-old
child still, in many ways,
so she will move on for

sure. I can say as the person who created the
character of Lexa, she would want Clarke to
be happy, so she will be with somebody
eventually. I won’t say who, when or if it’s
a guy or a girl.”

United by their shared goal to fight
extinction, Rothenberg says the large cast will
make for some interesting pairings this season.
“The show is about the delinquents, which is
what fans call them and is appropriate,” he
laughs. “Last season, we pushed them apart
and tested the limits of how far we could
stretch the universe and separate people. But
the other truth is that with this mission, they
can’t just all move in one direction together

and handle the problems one at a time.
So there is definitely a divide-and-
conquer approach to figure out the
best way to solve this thing, if there
is a solution.”

The 100 returns to US screens
on The CW in February. The
show airs on E4 in
the UK.

W AUTHORIseq^
r . BY THE

H.G. Wells
.V estate'-^

Buy it at your local Waterstones
or Waterstones.com

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SCI-FACT!

Apart from Kate Bishop and Clint Barton, Squadron Supreme's Wyatt MacDonald has also used the name Hawkeye.

Will she appear in
a movie for, like,
a minute before
turning bad?

SUPER G R POWER

Hawkeye gets a new string to her bow while
The Unstoppable Wasp flies solo at Marvel

While their classic incarnations

have long been Marvel stalwarts,
younger versions of Hawkeye and the
Wasp are now set to take centre stage after
being given their own monthly titles.

While writer Kelly Thompson first pitched a
Kate Bishop Hawkeye book two years ago, the
erstwhile Young Avenger is stepping into the
spotlight after her predecessor Clint Barton’s
controversial actions in Civil War II. “It just so
happened that once we got the green light,
Clint was moving to Occupy Avengers,” says
Thompson. “So we got to inherit the Hawkeye
name for Kate, which was super exciting!”

With Thompson noting that “our Hawkeye
is one part superhero and one part PI”, the first
issue sees Kate relocating to Los Angeles. “Her
move to the West Coast is driven by needing a
break from some of the rough stuff she’s been
through lately,” she says.

Meanwhile, written by Jeremy Whitley and
drawn by Elsa Charretier, The Unstoppable
Wasp focuses on Hank Pym’s long-lost
daughter Nadia Pym, who with her Red Room
background has much in common with Black
Widow. “Beyond her being a spunky 16-year-
old kid who knows 57 ways to kill you where
you stand, she can connect not just with Black
Widow but also the Winter Soldier,” teases
Whitley, who reveals that Nadia is also similar
to Hope Pym, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s
Wasp. “What we’re hoping to do is create a
version of what Hope might have been like,
were she born into the Marvel Universe as we
know it. Nadia is a very different character in a
lot of ways, but they have the same brain and
ambitious heart.” €>

Hawkeye and The Unstoppable Wasp are out
now from Marvel Comics.

Your kids will
understand
what’s going on.

SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE

TROLL MODELS

Writer and producer Marc Guggenheim
talks new Netflix series Trollhunters

^‘One of the touchstones for us

was the Amblin movies of the
’80s,” Marc Guggenheim,
co-writer and producer of new Netflix
show Trollhunters, explains. “The first
thing that jumped out is how much agency
the kids have. Often they are operating
without parental supervision and they can
handle danger and adventure.”

Danger and adventure are certainly in
no short supply. Created by the brilliant
Guillermo del Toro and adapted from his
own children’s book, Trollhunters is an
imaginative animated series telling the
story of Jim (voiced by Anton Yelchin),
who is chosen to become the first human
Trollhunter, protecting a secret society of
good trolls from their evil enemies.

Of all the many creatures that inhabit
this rich, new world, Guggenheim points
to Blinky - Jim’s troll mentor voiced by
Kelsey Grammer - as a particular
favourite: “He embodies to me what this
project is all about, which is taking
Guillermo’s design sensibilities and making
them appropriate for all ages.”

And just what is it like working with
such a creative filmmaker? “You can’t have
a meeting with Guillermo and not walk
away without being educated in some way.”

Sadly, Trollhunters also marks Anton
Yelchin’s last role, before he was tragically
killed in an accident last year. “Everyone
was really struck by, not just Anton’s talent,
but the depth of his spirit and what a
wonderful person he was. To watch him
grow into a voice actor and really come to
embody Jim was remarkably satisfying.” ®

Trollhunters season one is available on
Netflix now.

24 I SEX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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SCI FACT! SoftBank smartphone lets you watch The Force Awakens on repeat until 2019.

to be binge-watched. “There’s a lot
of contradictions to play with,”
k Jones says of his character. A
Bring ’em.

© Because you don’t have enough
Star Wars in your life already, Sharp is
manufacturing this SoftBank-exclusive
Star Wars smartphone to coincide with
the release of Rogue One. Its colour
scheme alternates between light and
dark (naturally), and there are custom
emojis, apps, and sound effects, so
you can pretend you’re living in a
galaxy far, far away. Slight snag, .
though - it’s currently only A
available in Japan. Like all
the best things.

©The robot assistant of
big-floaty-head-thing Zordon
has been absent from all Power
Rangers promo material - until
now. New concept art has shown
off the new and improved little guy,
who appears to be all CGI (so no
longer a bloke with a bucket on
k his head) and will be voiced
^ by Bill Hader. Brill. Power m
R angers opens on
24 March.

n association with

i BIG CHIEF

t STUDIOS LTQ

www.bigchiefstudios.co.uk

NEWS

WARP

HIGH-SPEED

FACTS

^ Firefly star Ron
Glass sadly passed
away on 25
November aged 71.
^ Emperor Snoke
could be portrayed
by a puppet in
Star Wars: Episode
VIII according to
new rumours.

^ The Mummy
will reboot the
Universal
Cinematic
Universe - Dracula
Untold is not being
considered
“canon”. Can’t
think why.

^ DC TV universe
supremo Greg
Berlanti will helm
a remake of Little
Shop Of Horrors.

^ Ryan Reynolds
has revealed he
wants “Deadpool
and

Wolverine
in a
movie
together”.

He’ll have
to drag Hugh
Jackman out of
retirement post-
Logan to make
that happen.

^ Richard E
Grant’s role in
Logan has been
revealed as Dr
Zander Rice, who
works for the
Weapon X facility.
^ New Mutants
could begin
filming in May
with director Josh
Boone at the helm.
^ King Arthur has
been pushed to
summer 2017.

^ Transformers
spin-off

Bumblebee could
be R-rated if
producer Michael
Bay has his way.

^ Marvel and
Sony confident
about Spider-Man;
Homecoming - a
release date of
July 2019 has been
set for a sequel.

WRITER EXCLUSIVE

MAGICAL CUSSES

Curse Words is a fantasy comic you can swear by

comics, but that is set to change in January with the
release of Inhumans Vs X-Men scribe Charles
Soule’s new creator-owned series. Curse Words. Drawn
by Ryan Browne, the ongoing Image monthly centres
around Wizord, a malevolent mage who journeys to New
York from another dimension with the intention of
conquering the planet, only to be won over by the Big
Apple’s particular charms.

‘‘Curse Words is designed to he its own thing,
but of course it’s been influenced by all the
books and Aims we’ve consumed over the
years,” Soule tells Red Alert. “The idea is to
distill all that down and make something that
feels new and familiar at the same time; to use
the language and tropes of fantasy, but in our
own way.”

Suggesting that the fantastic land from
which he hails is “like Middle-earth, but if
Sauron had won”, Soule compares the
morally conflicted Wizord to Breaking Bad’s
Walter White. “He’s inspired by a lot of

characters such as Gandalf, and even someone like Archer,”
he says, referring to the main character in the popular
animated spy series. “He’s extremely confldent, almost in a
delusional way, although it’s not entirely unwarranted, as
he’s pretty fantastic at what he does, but pride goeth...”

While Wizord’s evil demon boss Sizzajee despatches a
host of magical assassins to eliminate him and flnish the job
he started - including his ex Ruby Stitch and Botchko the
hogtaur; like a centaur but with a hog instead of a horse
- Soule believes that Curse Words’s breakout character will
he a talking koala named Margaret. “She’s
Wizord’s familiar, and is sort of his guide to

I our world, as she came here flve years before
he did to scout things out,” explains Soule.

“As the series continues, she also becomes
something like his conscience. Margaret is
fantastic, and I reckon people will end up
liking her more than Wizord, Luke Sk3rwalker
or even Dumbledore. She’s just great!” €>

Curse Words #1 is published on 18 January
by Image Comics.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 27

BedAleirt

SCI-FACT! Tolkien originally wrote Gandalf’s origin on the back of a postcard of a bearded figure.

RedAUrt

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfic

DEVELOPMENT HELL

Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped-for future

THE MAGNIFICENT CDRELLIAN!

HAN SOLO

© Saddle up your Bantha, pilgrim.
Seems the Han Solo movie will put
a spurs-j angling spin on everyone’s
favourite star-smuggler. “This
moves closer to a heist or Western
type feel,” reveals High Priestess
of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy.
The prequel tale will take its visual
cues from the work of 19th century
painter Frederic Remington,

whose golden, romanticised
illustrations did much to enshrine
the myth of frontier life. “We
talked about Remington and those
primary colours that are used in
his paintings defining the look
and feel of the film,” says Kennedy.
Game Of Thrones star Emilia
Clarke is the latest addition to
the cast, joining Dona W Glover
as a young Lando Calrissian and
Alden Ehrenreich reminding you

to never tell him the odds in the
title role. The Lego Movie’s Phil
Lord and Christopher Miller
CO -direct and the movie swaggers
through the space saloon doors
25 May 2018.

LIVING DOLL!

BARBIE

the live-action version of Mattel’s
poseable plastic clothes horse
comes accessorised with a
high-concept, stereotype-busting
twist. Schumer will play a
misfit living in a land of Stepford-
perfect Barbies who finds herself
transported to our world,
where the fact she’s different
from the perma-smiling,
immaculately- coiffed norm
becomes an unexpected asset. The

28 I SEX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

association with

BIG CHIEF

STUDIOS LTQ

www.bigchiefstudios.co.uk

ftn

screenplay’s by Community's
Hilary Winston but Schumer and
sister Kim Caramele are expected
to rewrite it. Pitched as a feelgood
comedy-fantasy in the Splash/Big
tradition, it’s the second
collaboration between Mattel
and Sony Pictures, who are also
developing a reboot of Masters
Of The Universe. We’re already
sensing crossover potential: Castle
Pinkskull, anyone?

SPICE UP YOUR LIFE!

DUNE

O Frank Herbert s sand-swept,
worm-infested brick of a book is
screenbound again. Originally
brought to the screen by David
Lynch in 1984 - the sight of Sting
in his winged undercrackers is
seared upon the minds of a
generation - and then turned into
a TV miniseries in 2000, it’s the
epic tale of Paul Atreides, scion
of the noble house of the desert
planet Arrakis. This world is the
only source of the “spice”

Melange, a drug that’s the most
coveted substance in the universe.
The rights to Herbert’s tale - a
key influence on a young fella
named George Lucas - have
been acquired by Lionsgate
Entertainment, home of the
Hunger Games franchise. They’re
looking to turn the Dune saga
into a global multimedia
franchise, developing movies and
potential TV projects. Possibly
even a cartoon spin-off about
Sting’s flying keks.

WETHCUGHTYCUWEREDEAD...

ESCAPE FROM
NEW YORK
© Reset that oversized digital
watch. Turns out the Escape From
New York remake isn’t a remake
at all - it’s a prequel. With a
screenplay by Luther creator
Neil Cross, the new movie will
apparently show us a New York
very different to the scuzzy,
maximum security clink of
John Carpenter’s original. It’s a
drone-patrolled, Al-controlled
utopia, in fact. In a cunning
inversion, the refugee- crammed
world outside isn’t quite so
desirable... This time Snake
Plissken must infiltrate the city

ALSO

BURNING

^ Nicolas Cage
signs on for global
warming thriller
The Humanity
Bureau...

Justice
Smith
joining
Jurassic
World!...

Chad
Stahelski directing
Highlander reboot
for Lionsgate...

How To Train Your
Dragon 3 delayed
till 1 March 2019...
Goosebumps’

Rob Letterman
directing Detective
Pikachu for
Legendary
Entertainment...

Dean Devlin
confirms Stargate
remake has
stalled... Aquaman
rescheduled for

5 October 2018...

Tom Holland and
Daisy Ridley
orbiting the adap
of Patrick Ness’s
YA novel Chaos
Walking... Ivan
Reitman says
more Ghostbusters
movies in
development...

Peter Jackson’s
adaptation of
Mortal Engines
set for release 14
December 2018...
Kingsman: The
Golden Circle
pushed back to

6 October 2017...
Angela Bassett
playing T’Challa’s
mother in Marvel’s
Black Panther...

David Leitch
confirmed as
Deadpool 2
helmer... Simon
McQuoid in talks
to direct New
Line’s Mortal
Kombat reboot...
Willem Dafoe
confirmed as a
cameo in Justice
League ahead of
his Aquaman
appearance...

Walton Goggins p

is the villain in x

Tomb Raider... tx

44 Fm not
going for
me same
crowd that
Marvel and
DC are
going for

and return with the villain of the
piece, the shady playboy heir to
a biotech corporation. Young
Snake has only 11 hours to
complete his mission - halving
the 22 -hour countdown of the
’81 movie - and an imminent
superstorm to contend with...
Carpenter bags an executive
producer credit on this one.

RUCK AND LUAD!

RAMPAGE

© All praise the secret Holl3rwood
cloning project that’s ensured
Dwayne Johnson will star in
every last film you’ll ever see.

How else would The Artist
Formerly Known As The Rock
And time to add Rampage to a
schedule already bulging like a set
of rippling bronzed pecs in a
hurricane-whipped shirt?
Adapting the classic ’80s arcade
game that pitted the military
against giant, mutated, city-
trashing animals - a gorilla! A
dinosaur! A werewolf! - it’s set to
be directed hy Brad Peyton, the
man behind Blumhouse horror
Incarnate (see pl4). “We are using
our love of the original game as
our inspiration,” he tells We Got
This Covered. “Then we’re going to
build a movie, like San Andreas,
that is really going to surprise
people in what it delivers. It’s
going to be a lot more emotional,
a lot scarier and a lot more real
than you’d expect.” Production
begins this March, targeting a
20 April 2018 release.

SPAWNYGET!

SPAWN

who unleashed comic book
antihero Spawn - wants to bring

his none-more-’90s super- demon
back to the big screen. But don’t
expect the blockbuster budget
treatment: Todd intends to direct
it itself, and he knows that first
time helmers don’t get to play
with the big bucks. “It’s not good
business to spend $80 million on
a movie and then give it to
somebody who’s not known for
directing movies,” McFarlane -
not known for directing movies
- tells Comicbook.com. “So I knew
I needed to keep the story and the
budget both tight so that when I
go to Hollywood and say T have
to direct it’, that’s not even a
negotiation.” He aims to bring it in
for $10 million - a quarter of the
money spent on Spawn’s movie
debut in 1997 - and wants to play
up the character’s hellish edge.
“I’m not going for the same crowd
that Marvel and DC are going for;
I’m going for the same crowd that
horror film releases are going for.
People who want to take their
boyfriend or girlfriend or go out
with the girls and go to the movies
and get spooked.”

PREDUEL IN DISGUISE!

TRANSFORMERS -
CYBERTRON
© Humanity’s subjugation by the
Transformers franchise continues
apace. Not only do outlines exist
for Transformers 5 and 6 - with a
separate Bumblebee spin-off
currently being written by Shut
In's Christina Hodson - but an
animated movie set on the Autobot
homeworld of Cybertron is also
looming on the horizon like a big,
clanking metal dude. “It’s in
continuity with the mythology,”
says producer Lorenzo di
Bonaventura, acknowledging that
it’s not officially a prequel to the
live-action movies. “It’s touching
on relatively the same time period.
We’re not trying to affect the
animated movie, and the
animated movie is not trying to
mimic or take from [the live-
action films]. It’s just we’re taking
from the same general area.”

Di Bonaventura hints that while
the movie will be set on Cybertron
there’ll be a link to our fair planet.
“To keep it relatable, you need an
Earth relationship to it. It’s not
necessary, but I think we like it.”

MARCH2D17ISFXMAGAZINEI 29

nil SFX HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN! 1 1 1

Ft^Ca

THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR

RUSSELL LEWIN,
PRODUCTION EDITOR

Presidents
come and go,
evil dictators
croak and
the Italian
banking system stumbles
from crisis to crisis, but
you guys thankfully keep
writing into us about the
subjects that really
matter, like the latest JK
Rowling moneymaker
and a plea for the name of
that TV series you half-
remember from the ’90s.
No seriously, we mean it!
The arts are vital to keep
us going in a difficult life.
Empathy is spread,
lessons are learned. So
send us your thoughts
to our regular contact
points and you’re making
a valuable contribution
to world sanity.

Your views on the
month’s big issue

#FANTASTIC
BEASTS AND
WHERE TO
FIND THEM

© FILMTHEBLANKS, Twitter Muffled mumblings
and how to hear them. An unlikeable wet
lettuce chases Pokemon and flghts a cloud of
CGI. Yawnius maximo.

© jjfanl, GamesRadar+ Took way too long to set up
the story. I loved the HP stories/movies and I
was forcing myself to stay awake until
three-quarters into the film where all of the
action starts. There wasn’t anything exciting
about the wizarding world within this story. I
trust that it will improve with the next film.

© SiMani983, online I hope that the upcoming
sequels follow an underlying story thread (eg,
about Grindelwald) but show it from the
perspective of other characters. I don’t think

we really need to stick with Redmayne’s Newt
as a protagonist for five Aims. Yes, there were
some things that were left unanswered (Newt’s
relationship with Dumbledore, Newt’s “War
Hero” brother...) but he didn’t seem interesting
enough to explore over a full franchise. Give us
new characters each time, but keep the main
story intertwining in the background.

© RFLong, Twitter Enjoyed the depiction of an
adult magical world, the way spells used by
those experienced in combat etc.

© OliverRFitz, Twitter Might not capture the
magic of original Potter Alms, and the plot
doesn’t flow perfectly, but still enjoyable due to
the setting and Eddie Redmayne.

© Michelle Birkby, GR+ Loved it. Awestruck by the
creatures, it had nicely complex characters,
and that streak of twisted darkness that was in
all the best Harry Potter movies. Looking
forward to the next one.

SFX Is that an adjective or an instruction?

30 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

In association with

O Twitter @SFXmagazine, #SFXcontact • © Post SFX, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BAl 1 UA

44 Might not
c^ture the magic
of the original
Potter films, but
still enjoyable

#VISITING HOURS

© Kiki Rodgers, GR+ Even though I
thought Arrzvu/ was a beautiful,
breathtaking film, I had a few
problems with it. SPOILER
ALERT! By the end of the film,
Louise can understand the alien
language, unlocking visions of the
future. Present and future become
one. In a conventional twist.
General Chang tells her future self
what to do so that her present self
can stop him attacking the aliens.

Does this mean the future is
fixed, and that Louise has no free
will? If the future isn’t fixed,
couldn’t she theoretically do
something that would alter the
future, and that would then alter
the past? I can’t get my head
around it. Louise asks Ian if he
would change his life if he could
see all of it, but she doesn’t decide
to change anything. Despite
knowing her daughter is going to
suffer and die at a young age, she
still decides to have her. Wouldn’t
the ending have been more
powerful if she’d decided not to
have her daughter? As it is, she
seems helpless to change anything.

Also, I’m not sure if the human
mind could handle seeing the
future - even though it’s been
supposedly recalibrated by
understanding this new language
(which again seems too simplistic).

Colour me confused.

SFX Yes, that confused me too.

Any readers have any theories?

© Sam Samuels, email Arrival is
about as far removed from the
original alien invasion movies of
the ’50s as could be. It certainly
surprised me - it’s more like a low
budget art film than an expensive
blockbuster. And at times I felt like
I was having to take on as much
hard work as the lead characters!

I found it very dour, but it does
create a dense, moody atmosphere
and has some novel ideas about
alien intelligence.

SFX I found it thought-provoking
but not massively entertaining.
And Jeremy Renner might as well
not have been in it.

#FORWARD TO GLORY

1) Wonder Woman - Obviously
the trailers look amazing. Gadot
looks great in the part, the WWI
setting is intriguing and looks to
have been done convincingly, plus
Etta Candy looks like she might
steal the movie. Could this be the
first really good female superhero
movie? But, to undercut the hype,
there are two concerns: can Gal
Gadot carry a movie (there have
been comments on her ^

© Dan McGeough, GR+ My new favourite film and
I thought it had all the best bits of the last eight
Potter films into one film and the creatures
were adorable.

© Edgar Tome, GR+ Entertaining but a bit poor,
plotwise. I think Redmayne is a highly
overrated actor. I didn’t expect to see that
character at the end.

SFX I wish we hadn^t.

SFX Ah, but he did! Just not all the time.

© Barbara Rowley, GR+ Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Loved catching all the little references - “more
of a chaser” etc - and thought it well cast.

The creatures were just beautiful.

I want a Niffler!

SFX Funnily enough, at the cinema
I work part-time atPve never heard
so many negative comments about
a major film from customers for
quite a while.

beautiful and amazing.

very dull and way too long.

© Martin Horne, Washington Excellent
extension of the original story. Didn’t
realise how much we’d all missed
the Potter universe. Well done JKR,
now let’s have more.

SFX Fm not a Potterhead so feel free
to ignore the following, but to me the
pacing seemed a bit off, the story
quite weak and there was an
overload of CGI.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 31

monotone line delivery), and, after
the shambolic theatrical releases
of BvS and Suicide Squad, have the
WB execs FINALLY learned to
stay away from the editing room?

2) Ghost In The Shell - Despite
some shrieking you may have
heard, whitewashing is not really
an issue here. In-world: the main
character has a prosthetic body,
and no less a person than the
creator of the original manga said
she prefers a European style. Real
world: for a Hollywood science
fiction blockbuster that’s hoping to
make money, Johansson is not
only an obvious choice, she is the
best choice. I am excited to see a
Western interpretation of GITS,
and to see that fascinating world
brought to reality. My real
concern is the script. Will this

be yet another bland, forgettable
actioner, or will it live up to
its potential?

3) Resident Evil 6 - Reasons to
be hopeful: Milla Jovovich kicks
arse. Director Paul WS Anderson
gets a bad rap, but he is a real
genre fan who makes fun films.
This movie also has the virtue of
being a known quantity from a
reliable team, whereas the above
titles excite great hope but might
also lead to great disappointment.

The fact that these movies all
have female leads is coincidence!

And what is this “stars war”
people keep talking about?

sfxATo idea,

#NAME THAT SHOW

© Amanda, email I am trying to find
out the name of a children’s TV
show from the late ’90s I think. It
was about three friends who travel
to a magical world and bring back
three objects. I remember one was
a chalice. Once they returned to
our world the objects turned into
everyday items. The chalice
turned into a tin cup and they had
to hide the items in the loft as
somebody was after them. I
remember watching it when it was
on and again when it was repeated
but I have no memory of the title. I
really hope this show was real and
not something I dreamt up. Could
you please help me as you can see
it’s keeping me up at night.

SFX Come on readers, you helped
Medium Atomic Weight out with
his bunny movie puzzle recently,
how about this one?

#BUFFY 2016 STYLE

© Keith Tudor, Romsey Recently
we’ve had two shows advertise
themselves as the British Buffy
- Class and Crazyhead. It is surely a
testament to the success of Bujfy
(a show which ended in May 2003,
a good 13 and a half years ago) that

both shows would choose to
promote themselves in this way. I
would argue that neither qualify as
such, as the characters in each
new show aren’t as well-
developed as they were in Buffy
(which had more episodes per
season to fiesh out
characterisation), however it is
good to have some new home-
grown genre shows. Crazyhead
feels more like a British version of
Supernatural than Buffy, as it
centres on two characters battling
demonically-possessed people,
with Tony Curran as Galium,
coming across as this show’s
Crowley in charge of the demonic
hoard. Class, however, appears to
have borrowed heavily from Buffy,
with its own version of the
Hellmouth, and with some in the
faculty of Coal Hill aware of the
rift and those fighting the
creatures emerging from it (in this
case a mysterious Governess in

44 Reasons
to be hopeful:
Jovovich
kicks arse 99

place ofBuffy’s Mayor Wilkins)
but the characters don’t have the
same variety.

Maybe these shows should stop
trying to be the British version of a
successful American show and
celebrate their own unique
identities in order to fiourish.

SFX Yep, and be better, generally
(especially Class).

#HEAVENLY COMEDY

© Phil Eggins, email As I sat reading
SFX 281 1 was wondering if you
would be covering the excellent
new sitcom The Good Place when I
happened upon Mike Garner’s
email on page 34. Far from being
the entire UK audience, there’s at
least two of us. As for how we’re
watching an NBC show from
England? That’s the magic of
Ted Danson.

SFX Ted Danson is magic, you^re
right That hair! But yes, we
interviewed Kristen Bell in SFX
280 , and hope to revisit the show
in a future Viewscreen...

#NOVEL APPROACH

Why is it that only the first book in
a trilogy or a series is reviewed?
Over the last two years, the only
exceptions your magazine made
were for Fool’s Quest by Robin
Hobb and A Night Without Stars
by Peter F Hamilton - both the
second novels in their series.

We are always more curious to
know how a second or third book
has come out after the wonderful
entry that was the first novel,
rather than reading reviews of bad
novels which get 2 or 2 stars.

I strongly urge you to rethink
your policy and begin to review
the subsequent books of trilogies
or series.

SFX Reviews Ed Ian writes: It does
happen a little more often than
that, actually - but generally that
is the policy. Thing is, reviews of
book two generally come out

32 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

reading very similar to reviews of
book one. I also don^t see it as a
choice between reviewing ongoing
series and “bad novels”, but
between covering series people
have probably already made their
minds up about and new series
they might not otherwise find out
about. Butrd be interested to
know what other readers think!

Your sci-fi

memorabilia valued
by the experts from
auctioneers Vectis

#WAN TOO MANY

© Bobby Avila, Facebook Why might
Obi-Wan Kenobi feature in Star
Wars: Episode VIIH Star Wars is
going to be done in by bringing the
dead back. How many Star Wars
movies have been done about the
Death Star? Darth Vader is coming
back in the next movie with
another Death Star. For these
movies to go on the story has to
move on. I hope Disney doesn’t
screw up the Star Wars craze.
When it comes to Disney may the
Force be strong with Star Wars.

SFX But ifd be good if they got
Jeremy Corbyn to play Obi-Wan.

#WE ALSO HEARD FROM

© Tommy McMunige, email Every
other magazine seems to have its
own dedicated website. Guess
what SFX does not. Why? This is a
sad state of affairs.

SFX Ooh, thafs an unusual
surname! Anyway, while there
isn^t an SFX site by name, there is
a load of sci-fi content over on
GamesRadar+, so hopefully you
do find some stujfyou like.

© Curtis Johnston, Twitter We need
more shows on TV with
spaceships. More spaceships the
better. With real science not just
fantasy bounty hunter stuff
SFX Rumour has it there^s a new
Star Trek show this year. That
might have some in.

© Retro Russ, email Do you guys
watch Talking Pictures TV? Loads
of obscure genre pictures every
week! Recommend it heartily.

SFX Yep, love it. Multi-channel TV
rocks, and I remember the
doomsayers in the ^ 80 s moaning it
was a terrible thing.

SFX You are, yes. Officially.

^ Barry from Newcastle
upon Tyne says: “In the
VOs my dad used to work
for the local newspaper,
the Evening Chronicle.
Every night they’d publish
one of those great
Amazing Spider- Man
strips. And then suddenly,
the horror, they stopped! I
asked my dad to find out
why. He said it was just an
editorial decision, but they
did have a complete set of
the strip that was set to
go in future editions, and
he managed to get it for
me. It’s not original art of
course but I was well
chuffed. So now I’m just
wondering: does it have
any worth at all?”

KATHY TAYLOR
OF VECTIS SAYS:

The images s\\o\n Amazing
Spider-Man line-art prints
(taken from original art)
by Stan Lee and John
Romita. As they were
never published within the
newspaper as intended I
would imagine a collector
would love them
(although I would think
these strips have been
printed elsewhere). It is
difficult to place a value
on them as there is no
precedent set.

If you’ve got a piece of
memorabilia you’d like us
to feature, send us a photo
of your item with a few
words about what it means
to you, to sfx(g)futu renet.
com, using the subject line
Cash In The AT- AT.

ISSUE 283 MARCH 2017

Future Publishing Ltd Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA
Email sfx@futurenet.conn Web www.gamesradar.com/sfx

EDITORIAL

Editor Richard Edwards, richard.edwards@futurenet.com
Art Editor Jonathan Coates, jonathan.coates@futurenet.com
Art Editor (Film Group) Cliff Newman, cliff.newman@futurenet.com
Production Editor Russell Lewin, russell.lewin@futurenet.com
Features Editor Nick Setchfield, nick.setchfield@futurenet.com
Reviews Editor Ian Berriman, ian.berriman@futurenet.com
News Editor Josh Winning, joshuawinning@yahoo.co.uk
US Editor (East Coast) Tara Bennett, usaeast@sfx.co.uk
US Editor (West Coast) Joseph McCabe, usawest@sfx.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS

Penny Archer, Sam Ashurst, Calvin Baxter, Simon Bland, Saxon Bullock, Bryan Cairns, Paul
Cemmick, Nick Chen, Nicola Clarke, Adam Cook, Sarah Dobbs, Penny Dreadful, Rhian
Drinkwater, Sean Egan, Rosie Fletcher, Paul Garner, Dave Golder, Nicky Gotobed, Stephen
Jewell, Matthew Looker, Miriam McDonald, Kirk McKeand, James Mottram, Jayne Nelson,
Andrew Osmond, Oliver Pfeiffer, Bridie Roman, Calum Waddell, Jonathan Wright

FILM GROUP, LONDON
Editor-in-Chief Jane Crowther Art Editor Mike Brennan
Reviews Editor Matthew Leyland Features Editor Matt Maytum
News Editor Jordan Farley Operations Editor Andrew Westbrook
Entertainment Editor (GamesRadar+) Lauren O’Callaghan

Cover photography Star Wars © Lucasfilm Ltd/Disney; Legion © FX;

Agents Of SHIELD © Marvel/ABC; Gotham © Fox

Photography Joe Branston, Oily Curtis

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“Is that soap?”

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 33

GAME OF
THRONES

Season 7

^movies and tv“^

Winter has come! Here’s what you want in our

penultimate trip to the Seven Kingdoms Illustration by Paul Garner

HEY, HBO! 5FX READERS HAVE SENT OUT THE RAVENS...
PAY ATTENTION OR WE’LL UNLEASH THE HOUND!

WORST THINGS HAPPEN AT SEA

With Daenerys en route to King’s
Landing with Yara and Theon Greyjoy,
you’re hoping for the mother of all skirmishes
in season seven. “A sea battle between the fleets
of Euron and Daenerys, off the coast of
Westeros, with lots of dragon Are,” says Kate
Leatherbarrow. “Preferably with Cersei
watching from Kings Landing, looking scared.”

WHITE WALKERS V DRAGONS!

Speaking of Cersei... “They should kick
Cersei’s ass and lead the armies of the
South, the Dothraki and the North against the
White Walkers,” reckons Neil Hickman. “Ice
zombie army invades from the North, Daenerys
and dragons arrive for a huge battle and almost
everyone dies!” adds Jonathan Harvey,
seemingly forgetting that there’ll be another six
episodes to go when season seven is done...

GET FLASHBACK

Season six embraced the flashback, and
you clearly want the show to keep

delving into the past. “More flashbacks are
deflnitely welcome,” says Tomas Becks. “It’s
always good to see the past of Westeros and
what really happened as opposed to what
people say has happened.”

WHERE THE STONEHEART IS

This is one that just won’t go away... In
the books [potential spoiler!], Catelyn
Stark is reanimated as the vengeance-seeking
Lady Stoneheart. Ever since the Red Wedding,
fans have been clamouring to see her reaping
carnage. “Get Michelle Fairley back, give her
some Walking Dead zombie make-up and I’ll be
happy,” says James Thompson.

BY GEORGE

Okay, it’s not strictly about the TV series,
but aside from more nudity [Yawn - Ed],
the most overwhelming request was for George
RR Martin’s next A Song Of Ice And Fire novel
to Anally land in bookshops. “I’d like to see The
Winds Of Winter before the next season, lol,”
says Phil Desira.

And that’s not all they want..

Niamh Kelly The new effin’ book!

^ Martin Fletcher I want to see
what Gendry’s been doing all
this time. He must surely be out
there somewhere!

A Neil Hickman Do something
about that sod Littlefinger, though
I can see him pulling a Karma
Houdini and getting away with
starting a lot of the trouble.

^ Gavin Dickinson A fight between
someone and a dragon, Saint
George style.

^ Tomas Becks I hope we still get
some surprises and a family
reunion when Arya finally gets
to Winterfell.

A Ricky Morris I think the season
should end with Jon Snow taking
King’s Landing from the North,

Daenerys taking it from the sea,
and Cersei getting her long-
awaited comeuppance. That’ll
leave six season eight episodes to
get rid of the White Walkers - easy!
A Ana We wanna see Daenerys
kicking ass and taking names.

And to see the Hound destroying
the Mountain.

^ Jason Castle Tyrion sitting on
the Iron Throne!

A Tracy Latham For Jon Snow
to wake up and realise it was all
a dream.

A Stephen Cornish Less dragons.
Less Dany. But that’s sadly unlikely.
A Louise Bennett I want to see
some love and happiness this year!
Let’s see Daenerys and Yara, and
Brienne and Tormund getting

together - and then some
weddings that aren’t red!

A Alice Yates For the two final
seasons to be 12A. [There wouldn’t
be much left - Ed]

A B_lngran I don’t want to see a
Jon Snow and Dany love team.
[What do you think this is? Star
Wars? - Ed]

^ Ed Gallagher I would like to see
an episode performed in the style
of modern interpretive dance or
possibly mime.

A Wayne Cowie As a final stab
from beyond the grave, Cersei
installs a whoopee cushion in
the Iron Throne, forever ruining
Dany’s ascension as queen, and
adding Daenerys the Windy to
the history books.

COMING SOON

DEADP00L2AND
FANIASIIC BEASIS 2

Next month we want your hopes for^^—^*
' the Merc With A Mouth’s second w - j
outing in Deadpool 2, then it’s the

Can/-acf//^ AnH \A/hai'a Tht

Fantastic Beasts And Where To
Find Them sequel.

See bit.ly/newSFXwishlist
for details.

34 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

In association with

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 35

HAPPY NEW FEAR!

© The horrors of 2016 are finally over - let’s
think positive and look to the year ahead. Here
are five films to look forward to in 2017: 1) warn
okay horrible title but this could
be interesting. It’s based on a (supposedly) true
story about an entity which possesses people,
causing them to carry out killing sprees. Stacy
Title, who made Cameron Diaz black comedy
The Last Supper, is steering the ship. 2) Iffgi
Brill-looking Blumhouse race-issue horror
satire directed by Jordan Peele, from TV
comedy Key And Peele. Daniel Kaluuya plays an
African-American bloke visiting his white
girlfriend’s family, where he learns lots of black
people have mysteriously disappeared. 3)

Reboot of an ’90s classic about med
students who experiment with death that I’m
not upset about because it’s directed by The
Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’s Niels Arden
Oplev. 4) Gorgeous

looking psycho -horror directed by Gore
Verbinski about a freaky “wellness centre” in
the Swiss Alps - stars Dane DeHaan and Mia
Goth. 5) Aka Cloverfield 3. Sneaky

sneak JJ Abrams announced in October that
this space station-set chiller would be the
threequel. Because he’s a movie ninja we know
sod all about it but I’m betting it’ll be good.

I WANT MY MUMMY

looks quite good. First of all, the mummy
herself (Sofia Boutella) has some seriously
creepy J-horror girl-ghost going on. Then
Russell Crowe, who plays Dr Jekyll, has said
the film will “scare the shit out of you”. And
then, in the trailer, we actually see Tom Cruise
screaming. The Cruiser! Screaming! If Tom’s
scared, after all he’s been through, there’s got to
be something to worry about. This is the first of
the rebooted Universal Monsters expanded
universe and they’re promising more horror,
hopefully in a change from the cheesy and
increasingly terrible most recent Mummys. I’m
not actually a mad fan of the original monster
movies so the reboot doesn’t bother me one bit.
“What separates a monster movie from a
horror movie or a slasher movie is the ability to

New Year blues? Don’t
worry, 2017 will be all
about Mummys and
adult babies...

fear the monster and fear for the monster,” says
Kurtzman. Reassuring.

MURDER MOST HORRID

© My new obsession is a slight digression from
horror but don’t worry, it still involves killing!
UnWaffTOTOSfiyTTOCT is a podcast hosted by
lovely valley girls Georgia Hardstark and Karen
Kilgariff, who each week discuss a real-life
homicide - it’s horrific and brilliant and
episode 18 is going to blow your mind. It tells
the story of 15 -year- old Mary Vincent, who was
hitchhiking in Las Vegas when a guy called
Lawrence Singleton picked her up. He raped
her, CUT OFF BOTH HER ARMS and threw
her down a ravine. And miraculously, she
survived. Gruesome, but it’s an incredible story
begging to be made into a movie. The story
doesn’t end there either - listen to the show for
more. Someone get Jason Blum on the blower,

I reckon there’s an Oscar in this one.

BABY LDVE

And bizarrely it
actually might be good. This is the latest from
Before Dawn and Bait director (and Emmerdale
star) Dominic Brunt, with his wife, actress
Joanne Mitchell, producing. Brunt describes it
as “a very British satirical slapstick horror”
which will delve into the underworld of
grown-ups who like to dress in nappies and
suck dummies. It stars Andrew Dunn, who
used to be Roger Stiles in Corrie. You can’t get
weirder than that. €>

Dreadful old movie

Artsy French zombie
movie The Grapes Of Death
(1978) is getting a DVD
rerelease from Redemption
Films on 23 January. It’s
from “dark-fantastique”, and
sometime porn, director
Jean Rollins, and features a
young woman trapped in a
village where an infected
vineyard has turned the
residents into ferocious
killers. Intoxicating.

36 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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WHERE WRITERS AND OPINIONS COLLIDE

LIFE ON MARS

Author Greg Bear celebrates the Red Planet

"I HAVE THE
STRANGE
FEELING THAT I
KNOW MARS,
THAT rVE
LIVED THERE”

□ ver the last 40 years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time on Mars - first

with my short story, “A Martian Ricorso”, published in Analog in
February 1976; next with Moving Mars published in 1993, and finally with
a return to Mars for the War Dogs trilogy.

Throughout these visits, I’ve loved keeping up with the very hard work
being done by engineers and scientists, exploring Mars remotely, trying to
understand its character and riddle its mysteries. My first visit began
before the launch of the Viking 1 and 2 orbiter/lander combinations. Thereafter, I
was constantly tracking the science and thinking my own thoughts about the first
puzzling and then disappointing soil tests conducted by those landers. I made
constant reference to Nasa/JPL volumes on Mars exploration, and to the scholarly
and brilliant examinations of Mars by Thomas Mutch.

My most recent visits to the Red Planet have been supplemented by Google
Mars online, with its excellent collection of orbital and lander photos placed all
over a huge photographic map montage - kind of a Martian street view. So far, no
signs of shops or towns - but that may soon change.

I have a strange feeling that I know Mars, that I’ve lived there, felt the very
slight push of its highest speed winds through my hair, the crunch of its ancient,
crusty soil under my naked feet... And all without a space suit!

Of course, I haven’t been alone on Mars. Not only have I been surrounded by the
transported presences of the scientists and spacecraft designers and controllers,
but of course by fellow science fiction writers. Kim Stanley Robinson, Gregory
Benford, Kevin Anderson and many others have joined me in writing about what’s
been called The Matter of Mars... And most recently, Andy Weir has done a fine
job bringing our favourite planet up to date for a new audience with The Martian.

No secret that we owe more than a tip of the hat to previous armchair explorers.
HG Wells, Ray Bradbury, Robert A Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke took different
aspects of the Mars first proposed by Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell, and given a
m3^hically significant twist by Edgar Rice Burroughs - rooting it firmly in the
thoughts and hopes of many through the 1950s and into the 21st century.

In the 1930s, Stanley Weinbaum wrote ‘A Martian Odyssey”, a striking and
pioneering examination of the possible strangeness of Martian life. Weinbaum’s
surrealistic sense of humour has spread far and wide since, from Warner Brothers
cartoons to my own imaginings. Weinbaum’s strangely bird-like, leaping and
head-plunging Tweel is my constant guide.

Thoughts about Mars have far-ranging effects on our popular culture.
Burroughs’ John Carter, coming from Earth, was able to jump far, run quite fast,
and exhibit significant strength on the lower-gravity surface of Mars. But the
greatest kick to our imaginations, delivered by Mars, is doubtless the thought that
here is a world with the potential for life. That hope may yet be realised, but at the
moment, our thoughts have turned to even stranger worlds - moons, mostly - far
out in the solar system, so-called “Roof Worlds” like Europa and Titan and
Enceladus where liquid water almost certainly exists under heavy ice. Even far
Pluto, demoted to a Kuiper Belt object, is being considered as an inner-oceanic
world, under extreme cold. Will that raise its status to planet once again?

Mars has taught us well, but the mysteries are far from resolved - and the race
to find our next home, and our biological cousins, is still on... ®

Take Back The Sky, the final book in Greg Bear's War Dogs Trilogy, is published by
Gollancz on 26 January.

A VISUAL MASTERPIECE

ONE OF THE GREATEST ANIME
OF ALL-TIME.” m

PRE-ORDER TICKETS TODAY

www.GITSmovie.co.uh

CONTAINS STRONG
VIOLENCE

#OrigiiialGITS

.IfillKAinKABlSHI

Ci[

riidh

SHUICHIKAK[

BOOK CLUB

CELEBRATING CLASSIC
SF & FANTASY NOVELS

TAILCHAS*ER’S SONG

by Tad Williams, 1985

Lila Bowen gets the cat treats out for a very special moggy

In the rejection letter for

his first query, Tad Williams
read the same thing querying
novelists are currently told:
“We don’t do animal books.”
In a twist rarely seen, a major
publisher acquired Tailchaser's Song in
response to his second query, and DAW is no
doubt pleased to remain the bestselling fantasy
writer’s primary publisher. Whether you’re
judging by the blurbs (Andre Norton! Tanith
Lee! Cat Fancy magazine!), the sales, or the
computer- animated movie that will be released
in 2018, there’s a very good reason why this
animal book became a success despite breaking
the number one rule in publishing.

In the 1980s, YA wasn’t a genre, much less
a force of nature. Young readers faced a
challenge in finding books that bridged the gap
from childish chapter books to adult books
with adult themes. I still remember the day in
1986 when I bought my sixth edition paperback
of Tailchaser's Song from a bookseller. I was
nine, and it was the only book I could find that
seemed interesting and in my Lexile range as
an accelerated reader. I was immediately
drawn to the hypnotic ginger cat on the cover.
This book spoke to me, on my level, about what
I wanted: a relatable character having the
exciting fantasy adventures usually reserved
for creatures I really couldn’t relate to - adults.

Perhaps this is the great, lasting strength of
Tailchaser's Song: it’s that rare book that speaks
to children and adults alike. The precise,
evocative prose is enchanting without being
needlessly complex, as compelling to me at 39
as it was at nine. The characters and themes
are timeless, the coming-of-age message as
poignant to an adult as to a child. Adventure,

THE WILD ROAD
by GABRIEL KING (1999)

-> A kitten named Tag goes on a
journey on a magic road, where he
meets clever, anthropomorphic
characters. How can anyone resist a
fox called Loves A Dustbin?

Tad Williams

romance, fear, loss, shame, myth, magic, cats: it
has ever3Thing. Unlike my other favourite at
the time, Watership Down, the story focuses on
Fritti Tailchaser as the centre of his world in
the same egocentric way children see
themselves. Through his eyes, I felt that I, too,
could take on villainous tabby Grizraz
Hearteater, even if defeating General
Woundwort required an army.

About the theme, Williams has said, “the
need to learn about oneself, to find out who you

THE PLAGUE DOGS
by RICHARD ADAMS (1977)

^ This book by the author of
Watership Down follows two damaged
dogs who’ve escaped from the horrors
of an animal research facility. Lyrical
and heartbreaking.

are before you can expect to change things in
this or any world, is something I still work with
all the time, in my books and my life.” As
Tailchaser triumphs, the reader is invited on
that journey in a way that feels more safe,
organic and relateable than the typical fantasy
tropes. This hero is no scion to a royal throne,
no bearded man wielding a broadsword.
Tailchaser is an engaging vehicle to explore
growth and choice, his strengths balanced with
accessible flaws. Today, we have Katniss
Everdeen, but in 1985, we had a little orange cat.

Williams himself acknowledges the nods to
Tolkien, admitting his own love of The Lord Of
The Rings and adding, “But even something
wonderful should still not be swallowed whole
without critical examination.” Although he
dealt with his issues with Tolkien more deeply
in Memory, Sorrow And Thorn, he limits his
homage to a scene in Tailchaser's Song in which
the feline version of Galadriel is encountered
biting her posterior, because that’s what cats do
(even if elves are only ever elegant).

This playfulness around fantasy elements,
interwoven with the serious thought behind
the mythos of Williams’s world, creates a
spellbinding story that withstands the test of
time. Tailchaser’s Song is an ideal entry point
for young readers to the sometimes
inaccessible world of fantasy, as invigorating
and tempting as a dash of catnip. ^

Lila Bowen's latest book, Conspiracy Of
Ravens, is out now from Orbit.

NEXT ISSUE©

In our next Book Club
(in SFX 284, on sale 1
February), Restoration
Game author Bradley
Beaulieu writes about
Fred Saberhagen’s
The Book Of Swords,
the trilogy from
the ’80s. Whether
you’ve never read it
before or fancy
giving it another go,
this is your chance
to peruse it before
a top writer gives ,
his verdict.

PWEOSA^^rHagen

40 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

‘All contents liable to change, but don’t go to pieces about it.

Nextlssue

THE LEGO

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40 years of 2000 AD
0 Life On Mars

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42 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 43

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS

MAY THE

BE WITH YOU

In 1977. the

STAR WARS

saga came.to planet
Earth... and changed-Jill
our worlds. Join us as we
celebrate four decades
of the Force!

1 ?

, ' 44 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

FEEL
THE 40

The chronology of a phenomenon.
Forever will it dominate your destiny!

1977

8 MARCH

First issue of Marvel’s
Star Wars adaptation
released (see p60)

1 MAY

First public screening of
Star Wars in San
Francisco

25 MAY

Star Wars opens in 32
cinemas in New York, Los

Angeles and San
Francisco

28 NOVEMBER

George Lucas completes
story treatment for The
Empire Strikes Back

27 DECEMBER

Star Wars premieres in
the UK

1978

1 FEB

Star Wars Weekiy
launches in the UK

1 MARCH

Spiinter Of The Mind’s
Eye released, the first
novel in the Expanded
Universe

46 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
CARRIE FISHER

THE STAR

BLOOD

“We were treated like rock stars!” Four
decades on, CARRIE FISHER remembers
the movie that changed her life.

Oliver Pfeiffer has an audience with
Her Worshipfulness

MARCH

First wave of 3 V 4 ”
Kenner action figures go
on sale, priced at 99p in
the UK

3 APRIL

Star Wars bags seven
Oscars. It’s also
nominated for Best
Picture and Director

21 JULY

Star Wars gets its first
rerelease, and its first
tweak: C-3PO has an
extra line in this print

17 NOVEMBER

The Star Wars Holiday
Special airs. It’s as if a
million voices suddenly
cried out in terror...

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I

1980

16 MARCH

Mark Hamill guests on
The Muppet Show,
wearing his Empire outfit

11 MARCH

A syndicated Star
Wars comic strip
launches in 214
newspapers

12 APRIL

Empire novel isation
released. The line, “I am
your father” is out there

1979

5 MARCH

Principal photography on
The Empire Strikes Back
begins in Finse, Norway

15 AUGUST

A second rerelease for
Star Wars, complete with
the first trailer for Empire

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
CARRIE FISHER

‘‘It’s only been positive,” Carrie Fisher

says, with a gleam. ‘‘I had a really good time
making Star Wars. 1 was very young and got
to he the only girl in an all-hoy fantasy so that
was fun!”

In the four decades following the release of
A New Hope, it’s arguably been Fisher who has
remained the most consistently enthusiastic
about her time in that galaxy far, far away -
even if it’s been by adopting an increasingly
sardonic approach toward the franchise that
made her a star.

From the beginning, she says, she was blown
away by the possibilities of George Lucas’s
vision. “I remember I read the script out loud
with a friend of mine, Miguel Ferrer, who
became an actor. It read fantastic. We both
wanted to play the part of Han Solo because
that was the best part. I couldn’t imagine how
they were going to pull it off [but] I definitely
wanted to be in it given that they had a chance
at pulling it off.”

As Fisher reveals, it was far from an easy
experience for the 19-year-old hired to embody
the feistiest of screen princesses. ‘When I got
the part they told me I had to lose 15 pounds so
I thought I’d better lose that or they’ll fire me! I
kept thinking they would realise they’d made a
mistake so I kept very quiet, which, if you know
me is unbelievable!”

And as for Leia’s now legendary space buns...
‘When [George Lucas] said, ‘We’re going to put
that awful hairstyle on you,’ I grew to love it.
‘What do you think of this?’ they asked. ‘Do you

a month before the
movie opens...

21 MAY

The Empire Strikes Back
released

1981

20 FEB

George Lucas completes
the first draft of Revenge
Of The Jedi

9 MARCH

National Public Radio
adapts Star Wars for the
airwaves

I SEX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

10 APRIL

Star Wars gets a third
release, now with
Episode iV - A New Hope
subtitle

1982

11 JANUARY

Revenge Of The Jedi
commences principal
photography at Elstree
Studios

MAY

The Empire Strikes Back
released for Atari and

Mattel Intellivision
systems - the first Star
Wars console game

27 MAY

Star Wars arrives for rental
on VMS and Betamax

24 OCTOBER

Star Wars gets its UK
television premiere

“ATTHETIMEIDIDNTLIKEITBUT
I NOW LIKE SEEING MYSELE IN
THE METAL BIKINI CAUSE I
LOOKED BEALLY GOOD THEN”

kiss back then, which was like 18 seconds so
they kept breaking it and breaking it and
talking and kissing again - it’s fantastic. But
that’s not the kind of kissing that I believe I did
in Star Wars. It’s certainly far from hot - you’re
very caught up in memorising your lines so you
have your mind on this whole other thing. The
kissing is more than secondary.”

Arguably steamier was when Leia donned a
revealing metal bikini for Jabba’s palace in
Return Of The Jedi. Fisher later posed in the
same scanty outfit for the cover of Rolling
Stone. How does she feel looking back at that
immortal image? ‘At the time I didn’t like it but
I now like seeing myself in the metal bikini
cause I really looked good then,” she laughs. ‘T
didn’t know it [at the time] so now I look back
and say, ‘Man, I should’ve paid attention!’ At
the time I let other people pay attention.”

Getting her head around some of George
Lucas’s infamously tortuous dialogue was, she
says, a struggle. “My first scene was with Peter ^

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
CARRIE FISHER

like it?’ I said, ‘It’s fantastic!’ So that’s why that
[hairstyle] exists. I did whatever they said as I
kept thinking they’d realise what they’d done
and fire me.”

Following a brief “Good luck!” peck on
Luke’s lips before swinging to safety from
stormtroopers in A New Hope, Leia smooched
with both her unbeknownst-at-the-time screen
brother and love rival love Han in The Empire
Strikes Back. Fisher has her own distinctive
take on all that onscreen locking of lips.

“Well, Harrison always said that he doesn’t
like screen kissing,” she shares. “It is weird. It’s
kissing for money and there’s something a little
more extreme than that and a word for it so...”
she trails off “I much prefer and enjoy
watching other people screen kiss. [Alfred
Hitchcock’s 1946 thriller] Notorious has the
best screen kiss going because they used to
have a limit on how long you could hold the

1983

27 JANUARY

Third Star Wars movie
now retitled Return Of
The Jedi

14 FEBRUARY

The Empire radio
adaptation broadcast on
National Public Radio

25 MAY

Return Of The Jedi
released, breaking

records for the biggest
opening day gross

1984

11 MARCH

The final Star Wars
newspaper strip is
published

25 NOVEMBER

Spin-off telemovie The
Ewok Adventure airs on
ABC in the US

1985

7 SEPTEMBER

The Ewoks And Droids
Adventure Hour cartoon
brings the joy of Star
Wars to kids’ TV

24 NOVEMBER

Ewoks: The Battie For
Endor airs on ABC

1986

MAY

The final
issue of
Marvel’s
Star Wars
comic book
is published

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 49

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
CARRIE FISHER

Cushing and I said [my line], ‘I thought I
recognised your foul stench when I arrived
onboard’ how I thought people would say it: ‘I
got onboard and there was this foul stench and
I thought I recognised it and it was you!’ I
wanted to say it like that. George came up to
me and said, ‘This is really serious. You’ve lost
your planet, your mother and your stepfather,
your album collection and all those things...’
and so I did it seriously. But I do like yelling
things at people: You came in that thing?
You’re braver than I thought!’ I liked that I
could say that kind of stuff. However, some of
the other lines were really hard because they
were a pretend language [“Why, you stuck-up,
half-witted, scruffy-lookingnerfherder!”]. So
you had to say them as if you were saying
regular old slang. [Harrison] would rewrite and
add his own stuff all the time.”

Ford’s dismay with the Star Wars screenplay
remains legendary. He famously told Lucas

1 WAS WATCHING IT TWO WAYS:
IWASTHINKING/WHATAFAT
FACE THAT GIRL HAS’ AND
WHAT A COOL MOVIE!"’

‘You can type this shit but you can’t say it!”
What was the megastar-in-the-making like to
work with back then? “Everybody in the early
morning on set is not going to be someone
you’re going to want to talk to but Harrison
could be a lot of fun,” Fisher reveals (this
conversation took place before her recent
revelations about her affair with Ford). “We
were all kind of concentrating and Harrison
can be a very serious guy, depending on how
many beers he’s had! I was 19. Harrison was 33
so he wasn’t skipping around and stuff It was a
job and a really fun job but it was still work.”

The saga became substantially more serious
for Leia toward the end of Return Of The Jedi
when she learns she’s not only sibling to
one-time prospective love interest Luke
Skywalker but also the daughter of Darth Vader.
“I didn’t know [Luke] was my brother,
otherwise I would’ve treated him a lot worse!”
Fisher reflects with tongue firmly placed in

cheek. “I would’ve made him clean up my
messes and help with my homework.”

But what about the other whammy: learning
that your father is Vader? “Isn’t that a bitch!”
she deadpans. “Look at Darth... he doesn’t look
like someone who could come to school on
Father’s Day or walk me down the aisle and
give me away. But it would be interesting if he
did. I wish he were a dad like that! I really don’t
think it occurred to me when they told me. I
said, ‘I know... somehow I’ve always known’.

Literally I was told to do that and say, ‘I know...
somehow I’ve always known’ like I’m a puppet.”

It’s safe to say the majority of cast and crew
never anticipated the phenomenon of Star
Wars, one that endures to this day, 40 years on.
“Nobody knew, nobody knew!” says Fisher,
unequivocally. “I remember seeing it and
thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like
that!’ But I was watching it two ways: I was
thinking, ‘What a fat face that girl has’ and
‘What a cool movie!’ Those thoughts interrupt

1987

9 JANUARY

Star Tours opens at
Disneyland in California,
complete with FX by ILM

23 MAY

The first Lucasfilm-
approved convention is
held in LA

50 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

1988

1 JANUARY

Atari’s Star Wars arcade
game comes to the
Commodore 64

1989

12 JULY

Star Tours opens in Tokyo
Disneyland

19 SEPTEMBER

Now officially historically
significant, Star Wars is
inducted into the
National Film Library by
the US Library Of
Congress

:i990

• 13 JANUARY

1991

1 MAY

Timothy Zahn’s novel
Heir To The Empire
ignites a new era of Star
Wars fandom

15 NOVEMBER

Star Wars arrives on
Nintendo, courtesy of
Lucasfilm Games

each other, thank god, in one direction. George
is the best storyteller. He has an amazing
imagination. But no, they didn’t know it was
going to be a big hit. If they knew it was going
to be a big hit they wouldn’t necessarily have
booked us on a press tour of America. It didn’t
need it! But we were there an3rway, so they
booked it like we were going to have to
[peddle] this unpopular horse. However it was
a very popular horse so we just went round
America and we were treated like rock stars!” ©

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
CARRIE FISHER

40 MINUS 40

We’re now as far away from Star Wars as Luke
and CO were from 1937... Scary, much?

Strip-to-screen adaps are
nothing new. In 1937 anvil-
jawed crime-buster Dick Tracy
starred in a cliffhanging
Republic serial, battling the
Lame One and his diabolical
sound disintegrator.

# Snow White And The Seven
Dwarfs was Disney’s first
full-length animated movie
and the highest-grossing
sound pic of its day. Eighty
years on, the House of Mouse
owns the Lucasverse...

A year on from his screen
debut. Flash Gordon still
reigned as the number one SF
hero, facing the Tusk-Men and
Beast-Men of Mongo in Alex
Raymond’s newspaper strips, a
key influence on George Lucas.

Superman was still a year
away. Batman two, so the
Shadow and other pulp mag
heroes ruled the newsstands.

Orson Welles played him in a
radio serial, a year before unleashing Martian firepower over the airwaves.

Future Lando Calrissian Billy Dee Williams was born 6 April 1937 in New
York. Over in Britain, Alec Guinness did Shakespeare at the Old Vic while Peter
Cushing was in rep in Southampton, leaving for Hollywood two years later.

Nick Setchfield

FLASH

■

if!

DECEMBER

Dark Horse Comics
launch post-Jed/
adventures with
Dark
Empire

1992

12 APRIL

Euro Disney opens in
France, complete with
Star Tours

NOVEMBER

Super Star Wars released
for Super Nintendo

:i993

• FEBRUARY

SEPTEMBER

The Star Wars trilogy
arrives on laserdisc

LucasArts releases floppy

disc flight sim Star Wars: NOVEMBER

X-Wing for PC Rebel Assault is the first

Star Wars CD-ROM game

1994

JULY

Star Wars: TIE Fighter
released for PCs and
Macs

11 AUGUST

Peter Cushing dies

1 NOVEMBER

George Lucas begins
screenplay for Star Wars:
Episode /

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 51

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
STATWARS

STAT WARS

Vital statistics from a galaxy far, far away *

(Alderaan, five members of
the Hosnian system,
Starkiller Base)

' Number of limbs lost I

(not including droids

r or limbs lost on screen

(not including drnid'; ’'i -

Mace

AnaWn’s ari« arm,

2187

Number of Leia’s cell in
A New Hope and Finn’s
Stormtrooper designation

$6.6 billion

Combined box office for seven
Star Wars Episodes to date

Number of
Imperial officers
to appear in
more than
one film

(Captain/Admiral Piett)

Bounty hunters
briefed by Darth
Vader in The
Empire Strikes
Back

(4-LOM, Boba Fett,
Bossk, Dengar, IG-88,
Zuckuss)

(Source: Box Office Mojo)

1138

Non-Force-
sensitive
characters who
ignite lightsabers

(Han Solo, Finn)

Uses of “I have
a bad feeling
about this”

(Includes derivatives like
“I got a bad feeling
about this”)

Actors whoVe
played Anakin
Skywalker/Darth
Vader

Dave Prowse, James Earl
Jones, Jake Lloyd, Hayden
Christensen, Sebastian
Shaw, Bob Anderson

The number of a Battledroid {Episode /)

LEDs in the back of Clone Trooper
uniforms (//)

Clone trooper who kills Ki-Adi Mundi
(///)

The cell block Han and Luke say
they’re escorting Chewie to (/!/)

A number on screen in the operations
room where R2 and 3PO hide on the
Death Star {IV)

Rogues 10 and 11 are sent to
station 38 (10

The number on the side of Leia’s Boushh
helmet (W)

Designation of a Stormtroopers in the
assault on Tuanul {VII)

Star Wars Stars

Characters whoVe appeared in three
or more movies

I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

This just takes in Episodes l-VII, so does not inciude Rogue One, the Clone Wars movie or any other spin-offs.

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40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
BOBAFETT

THE ICON

JEREMY BULLOCH was Boba Fett, the
biggest scene-stealer in the Star Wars
universe. Calum Waddell meets the man
behind the Mandalorian armour

1995

15 FEBRUARY

First person shooter Star
Wars: Dark Forces
released for PC

30 NOVEMBER

Rebel Assault II: The
Hidden Empire
incorporates first new
iive-action Star Wars
footage since Return Of
The Jed!

1996

1 APRIL

Star Wars goes
muitimedia as the
Shadows Of The Empire
novei is reieased, tieing
in with a comic book,

N64 game (beiow),
soundtrack CD and toy iine

OCTOBER

Return Of The Jed!
adapted as a radio drama
for NPR

26 NOVEMBER

The Force is oniine as
StarWars.com iaunches.
Beware the power of the
diai-up!

1997

31 JANUARY

Speciai Edition of >4 New
Hope reieased, restored
and remixed with
controversiai new FX. The
saga enjoys a new surge
of popuiarity among
Generation X

14 FEBRUARY

The Empire Strikes Back:
Special Edition reieased

14 MARCH

Return Of The JedI:
Special Edition reieased

26 JUNE

Photography starts on
Star Wars Episode /

54 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

1998

18 SEPTEMBER

CD-ROM Star Wars:
Behind The Magic
contains never-before-
seen deleted scenes from
A New Hope

2001

29 APRIL

Despite a grassroots
campaign, “Jedi Knight”
is not recognised by the
5 AUGUST J UK census

Sir Alec Guinness dies ^

17 NOVEMBER

Teaser trailer for The
Phantom Menace the
biggest event in internet
history to date

1999

16 MAY

The Phantom Menace
premieres, smashing the
box office with a US
release on 19 May

2000

26 JUNE

Principal photography
kicks off on Episode ii

15 JUNE

A fan recuts The Phantom
Menace as The Phantom
Edit. The age of unofficial
retoolings begins...

15 OCTOBER

The Phantom Menace
becomes the first Star
Wars movie on DVD

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 55

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
BOBAFETT

Despite decades working in film and

television, Leicestershire-born actor Jeremy
Bulloch will forever be remembered as the man
who gave life to Boba Fett. Despite only briefly
appearing in The Empire Strikes Back, and with
the most minimal of backstory the enigmatic,
near-wordless bounty hunter was so damn cool
that it was only inevitable he would be asked
back for 1983’s Return Of The Jedi. Speaking
today, Bulloch admits that - in retrospect - he
sees the appeal in the character...

“There is something about the antihero isn’t
there?” he admits. “Fans like villains. And I
think that when he got killed in Return Of The
Jedi it actually upset people. I remember seeing
the film in the cinema, and I went to see it a
few times, and hearing members of the
audience say, quite loudly, ‘What? You can’t just
kill him like that! It happened too easily!’ They
obviously liked him and that was why he was
brought back in the prequels. Plus, he answers
Darth Vader back in The Empire Strikes Back
and not many characters do that and get away
with it [laughs].”

Bulloch admits excitement at the possibility
of a standalone Boba Fett movie.

‘Yes, I think it is a terrific idea,” he enthuses.
“I think it is brilliant that Boba Fett suddenly
has a storyline. I mean look, let’s face it - he
was just a peripheral character in the original
Aims but, through doing the prequels, they
have made so much more out of him. Now the
general public - who probably once associated
Star Wars mainly with R2-D2, Darth Vader and
Chewbacca - also know who Boba Fett is. I
especially enjoyed how they revealed that he

was a clone all along. That was a part of the
prequels I enjoyed.”

A cameo appearance in 2005’s Revenge Of
The Sith gave Bulloch the chance to realise one
Anal Star Wars ambition - to be directed by the
man who started it all...

"TO BE HONEST, I THOUGHT
BOBA FETT SHOULD HAVE PUT
UP MORE OF A FIGHT IN
mNOFMBr

“Oh goodness, what a great opportunity that
was. I was able to work with George Lucas and
it was like going back 25 years. I had met him
before, of course, but even as a director - on
this big blockbuster project - he was the same
person he was back in 1980: gentle, considerate
and very, very quiet. However, that is Star Wars
in general - I have worked with some bullies in
my time and these Alms had three very
easy-going men calling the shots.”

The clone storyline caused division in the
Star Wars fan universe - but Bulloch has more
of an argument with his demise in Return Of
The Jedi, turned into so much Sarlacc-feed in
the Great Pit of Carkoon...

2002

16 MAY

Episode //; Attack Of
The Clones premieres in
the US

2003

7 APRIL

Star Wars: Clone Wars
comes to Xbox

30 JUNE

Principal photography
begins on Episode III

7 JULY

Online multiplayer game
Star Wars: Galaxies - An
Empire Divided launches

15 JULY

Knights Of The Old
Republic arrives on Xbox

7 NOV

Lucasfilm teams with
Cartoon Network on
Genndy Tartakovsky’s
bite-sized, animated
Clone Wars

2004

21 SEPTEMBER

The newly remastered
original trilogy lands
on DVD. Shooter game
Star Wars: Battlefront
also released

2005

16 MAY

Worldwide release of
Episode III: Revenge Of
The Sith

56 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

“When I got told I was going to be killed in
Return Of the Jedi, I was not disappointed until
I saw that he was going to go so quickly/’
reveals the actor, now aged 71 and still a signing
regular at conventions. “To be honest, I
thought that he should have put up more of a
fight. But that’s showbiz, that’s the film
industry, and it is nice that he still has such an
aura around him even after he was disposed of
so easily [laughs]. If I could have written it,
though, I would have had more of a battle
between Han Solo and Boba Fett. I got the
impression that they must have fought together ^
in the past and now they were enemies and this ^
was their chance to finish it!” ® ^

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
BOBA FETT

THE EXTRA
STRIKES RACK

obscure bit-parters we’d like to see more of
in the new Star Wars continuity*

YADDLE

APPEARED IN THE PHANTOM MENACE
^ Thought Yoda was the only one of his kind? Another of
his (still unnamed) species actually makes an appearance
in The Phantom Menace as a member of the Jedi Council.

At 450 years old, she’s a mere youngling compared to
Yoda, and leaves the council shortly after the Battle of
Naboo. We’d love to see her team up with Yoda and
explore their homeworld.

ZAM WESELL

APPEARED IN ATTACK OF THE CLONES
A She’s the bounty hunter who kick-starts Episode II with
an attempt on Padme’s life, prompting a madcap chase
across Coruscant. But most importantly, she’s a
shapeshifter, something that makes her a unique
proposition in the Star Wars universe (another of her
Clawdite species appeared in The Clone Wars). Star Wars
loves its bounty hunters, and Wesell definitely warrants
more screentime.

B’OMARR MONKS

APPEARED IN RETURN OF THE JEDI
4 You know that spidery robot that freaks out C-3PO in
Jabba’s Palace? That’s actually a droid carrying the
disembodied brain of a B’omarr monk, the original residents
of the vile gangster’s lair. In Star Wars lore, the monks
discard their organic bodies as part of their path to
enlightenment - an intriguing premise that deserves to be
explored further.

PRUNE FACE

APPEARED IN RETURN OF THE JEDI

# Anyone who had this original Kenner figure back in the
day (this writer included) would have wondered who the
hell he was - he didn’t even get a proper name, Orrimaarko,
until the ’90s. He’s one of a group of Dressellians who
appear (barely in focus) in the background of the Rebel
briefing - his most notable appearance since has been in a
Robot Chicken sketch (bit.ly/PruneFace). We’d love to know
something - anything! - about him.

RANCOR KEEPER

APPEARED IN RETURN OF THE JEDI

♦ Another bit-parter gifted a figure, Malakili is the rotund,
topless chap who looks like a wrestler from ITV’s World Of
Sport, and blubs uncontrollably when Luke Skywalker offs
the Rancor. Why the hell did he have a monster as a pet?
Why did he end up working for Jabba? (In the old expanded
universe, he ended up opening a restaurant!) Richard Edwards

2006

12 SEPTEMBER

Original, unrestored
theatrical cuts
accompany DVD releases
of Episodes IV, V and VI

2007

28 MARCH

US postage stamps
commemorate the
30th anniversary

13 JULY

Celebration Europe held
at London Docklands -
the first official Star Wars
con outside the US

23 SEPTEMBER

15 JUNE

Robot Chicken spoofs
Star Wars (left)

Family Guy takes on Star
Wars with Blue Harvest

2008

15 AUGUST

First animated Star Wars
film. Clone Wars, released

16 SEPTEMBER

The Force Unleashed is
released - and becomes
the fastest selling Star
Wars game yet

3 OCTOBER

Star Wars: The Clone
Wars debuts on Cartoon
Network

2009

2 OCTOBER

Season two of The Clone
Wars begins, titled Rise
Of The Bounty Hunters

22 DECEMBER

Something, Something,
Something, Darkside is
Family Guy’s Empire spoof

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 57

r ALIEN MASKS

“Here we have masks from
the original moulds. Duros, who
became The Clone Wars’ Cad
Bane, and unused Duros hands. As
well as the Givin [aka the Cantina’s
Rick Baker-created Elis Helrot aka
Skull Head], based on Edvard Munch’s
The Scream. [The third mask] was a
gift from a friend of mine who
^ used it in the 2012 Star Wars
^ Volkswagen commercial for '
^ the Super Bowl.” /

40 YEARS OF STAR WARS
STEVE SANSWEET

2012

10 FEBRUARY

Episode I: The Phantom
Menace gets a 3D
rerelease

30 OCTOBER

Disney buy Lucasfilm and
announce that Episode
W/ will arrive in 2015.
Fireworks over Endor!

BOUNTY HUNTER

Joseph McCabe journeys to the bright centre of the
Star Wars collecting universe...

f there’s one pilgrimage every Star
Wars fan must make in their lifetime,
it’s to Rancho Obi-Wan (https://www.
ranchoobiwan.org). Located in
Sonoma County, California, this
nonprofit museum features the world’s
largest privately owned collection of Star
Wars merchandise, collectables and
memorabilia. Chairman and president Steve
Sansweet describes it as a natural extension
of his former position as head of Fan
Relations at Lucasfilm. ‘Xucasfilm,” he says
proudly, ‘^was the first movie company to go
out directly to the fans.”

Housed within the 9,000-square-foot
converted barn of a former chicken ranch,
the collection’s 300,000 items include
everything from a full-size Jar Jar Sinks
frozen in carbonite to Boba Fett’s original
stunt gun to a vintage Japanese C-3PO action
figure that fires a missile from its belly
button. Here are a few more artefacts SFX
saw on our visit to this Jedi Mecca... ©

r ANIMATRONIC
CANTINA BAND

Of his very own music-playing
Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes,
Sansweet tells us, “These were at
the big toy store chain FAO Schwarz
in Las Vegas, on display on the
second floor behind the soda
counter. They were listed as ‘alien
mannequins’ when FAO went
bankrupt. Next to them is the
actual door to the
V Cantina.”

T/IRA^/li;

2013

2014

25 JANUARY

Principal photography on
The Force Awakens begins
in Abu Dhabi

3 OCTOBER

CGI show Star Wars Rebels
launches, set between
Episodes III and IV

58 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

JJ Abrams named
director of Episode VII

5 FEBRUARY

Disney announce the new
trilogy will alternate with
standalone films

2010

26 OCTOBER

Star Wars: The Force
Unleashed // released

12011

• 20 MAY

• Star Tours: The

• Adventures Continue
launches at Walt Disney

^ World

J 22 JULY

• Lego Star Wars: The

• Padawan Menace airs on

• Cartoon Network,

reimagining George
Lucas’s galaxy in brick
form

16 SEPTEMBER

Star Wars: The Complete
Saga arrives on Blu-ray

20 DECEMBER

Online roleplaying game
Star Wars: The Old
Republic launches

CUSTOM- ^

MADE ACTION ^

FIGURES ^

While Kenner and now Hasbro’s
Star Wars action figures are the
most popular toys from that galaxy
far, far away, the true superfan has one
or two customised figures in their
collection. Sansweet, however, again
takes top prize.

r CHEWBACCA I

MASK ^

“This is one of the original
Chewbacca appearance masks
at Walt Disney World. Those were
made by [famed creature mask
maker] Don Post. That’s when
Lucasfilm saw the masks that
Disney had been using, that they
had bought from a 1993 arena
show in Japan called The
Super Live
/ Adventure’.”

About three trillion
times better than your

average toy shop.

These are
everybody’s favourite inaction
figures - Aunt Beru and
Uncle Owen... I do indeed

love these.” ^

/ FIGURE

^ SCULPTS

“These are beautiful. These
are the hard copies on which
Lucasfilm did final sculpt
approval. The Lucasfilm approval
guy said, ‘I love them so much. Can
you paint one set for me?’ So this is
hand-painted. What did this
become? A Kellogg’s UK cereal
spoon! You couldn’t even tell
» what character it was... But

the Leia sculpt is really .
pretty.”

ORIGINAL ' /

’ PROMOTIONAL

BANNER

“This is one of my most precious
belongings. This is {.Star Wars artist]
Ralph McQuarrie’s painted art for
Starkiller, the original composite
character. The art was used on decals and
t-shirts, but this was done for the sixth
year of Comic-Con in San Diego. Ralph
told me. That’s my original concept for
the logo, and I still like it better than
theirs!’ It’s probably the world’s
only hand-painted Ralph
• / McQuarrie banner,

, from 1976.” /

C-3PO ^

^ HANDS

Rancho Obi-Wan holds 1
costume artefacts from many
of Star Wars’ main characters,
including “a screen-used C-3PO
hand from The Empire Strikes Back,
and an unused hand that was a
gift from Bantha Tracks, the
original Star Wars Fan Club
newsletter... This was given /
f away years ago in a

creativity contest.” /

THE REBELLION
NEEDS YOU!

And so does S¥X.„

vv.: wc.u your h-orce-fuelled memories! Were you
among the first to see Star Wars in 1977? Did you
discoyer the saga yia the prequels? Haye you mao
lifelong friends through your fandom? How big is
your collection? What’s the coolest bit of merch
you own? Which Star Wars celebs haye you met?
Share your stories and show us your photos! We’ll

foTfx^f

to sfx(3)futurenet.com, marked Star War^ ac\

28 NOVEMBER

There has been an
awakening... The first
teaser trailer for Episode
Vii torches the internet

18 DECEMBER

Star Wars: The Force
Awakens released
worldwide

16 APRIL

Han and Chewie’s
appearance in the second
Force Awakens trailer
puts something in the

15 DECEMBER

Rogue One, the first Star
Wars spin-off movie,
released

world’s eye.

1 i^\

' ’ A

/ .

/'I

/ ^

./ /

■ /

/ /

/ ,

/ J

TIME MACHINE
MARVEL STAR WARS

STAR WARS

MARVEl: COMICS GROUP

THE GREATEST SPACE-FANTASY RLM OF ALL!

JULY

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60 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

TIME MACHINE
MARVEL STAR WARS

TIME

MACHINE

MARVEL’S
STAR WARS

Luke Skywalker saved Marvel Comics from the Death Star.
Nick Setchfield remembers a gamble on a galaxy far, far away...

A judo-robed figure stands

primed for combat, one hand a
balled fist, the other clutching
a blade of blood-red light.

He’s fianked by three other
figures: one blasts a ray gun, another man -
hooded, white-bearded - holds his own bright,
electric sword. Behind them is a woman, her
hair styled like a Victorian governess, her lips
pouting, doll-like, her eyes closed in what could
almost be rapture. Looming above them all is a
disembodied green head, partway between a
tribal mask and a carburettor, its eyes lit by the
blaze of galactic war. As starships wheel
around this bizarre tableau, a question is posed
in the familiar booming voice of comic book
hyperbole: ‘‘Enter: Luke Skywalker! Will he
SAVE the galaxy - or DESTROY it?”

It’s a question that seems absurd now, 40
years after the Force conquered the world. But
this was March 1977 and the first issue of
Marvel’s Star Wars - an adaptation of a
potentially doomed sci-fi flick from the shy
auteur behind Amen'cun Graffiti - had to fight
for attention on the newsstand. With its parent
movie two months from release it was still an
unknown quantity, just another kooky outer
space title, wedged between big-hitter brands
like Superman, The Amazing Spider-Man and
Captain America. There was no Fox fanfare to
accompany it; just a bold claim, riding above the

logo, part-prophecy, part- Stan Lee style carnival
bark: “The greatest space-fantasy film of all!”

“George was a reasonably large comic fan,”
recalls writer Roy Thomas, who adapted the
movie for Marvel. “We first met over dinner in
early ’75. That was the night I remember him
talking about ‘The Star Wars’. I didn’t get too

“GEORGE WAS ALREADY
TALKING ABOUT
LW/?5’ BEING PART OE A
SERIES OE MOVIES"

much out of him other than it was a sort of
Flash Gordon thing... He was already talking
about it being part of a series of movies.”

George Lucas had devoured comics as a kid,
his collection spilling into the family shed,
another escape from the soul- crush of
suburban Modesto, another chance to Skywalk
in his head. He had a particular weakness for
Tommy Tomorrow of the Planeteers in Action
Comics, a space hero whose world was rocked
by the revelation that notorious space pirate
Mart Black was - steady yourself - his father.
The screenplay for Star Wars betrayed his
lifelong love of four- colour adventure: Darth
Vader had trace elements of Doctor Doom, the
Force echoed the equally mystical Source of
Jack Kirby’s Fourth World comics.

SHOOTING FOR THE STARS

Star Wars, then, was a natural fit for comic
books, and Lucas sensed a promotional
opportunity, too. Charles Lippincott -
Lucasfilm’s marketing officer - agreed that
comic readers were “the same audience” as
that of the movie Twentieth Century Fox was
gambling on. He met with DC to discuss a
licence but decided they were too staid, too far
from the cutting-edge of a medium that now
appealed as much to college students as kids.
Marvel were smarter, sharper, cooler. ^

MARCH 2017 1 SEX MAGAZINE I

TIME MACHINE
MARVEL STAR WARS

JUST myself. The Bcn. and two

^ MO/0S •• WITH fto OUiSnOftS.

FORGE

QUIT

Roy Thomas didn’t
feel the Force

The man who adapted Star Wars wasn’t
sold on one crucial aspect of George
Lucas’s myth-building. “I always hated the
Force stuff,” Roy Thomas tells SFX. “\
thought it was nothing but buzz-words and
pseudo-philosophy. I liked the ray guns and
the robots and the rockets and all of that
stuff but the Force is just a bunch of
nonsense. A lesson in the Force? I could
care less [laughs]! I loved the movie, I Just
didn’t like the Force. I haven’t seen the last
one. The Force Awakens... I’m sure I’m going
to love that one!”

Lippincott made a cold call to Stan Lee’s
office but couldn’t get an appointment with
Marvel’s publisher and media figurehead. He
turned instead to Marvel writer Roy Thomas,
the man behind a successful comic book version
of pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian.
Thomas clearly had a knack for adapting fantasy
properties and was keen to break the lockhold
that superheroes held over the industry.

Lippincott met with Thomas in February
1976, accompanied by mutual acquaintance Ed
Summer, proprietor of Supersnipe Comic Art
Emporium. It was Summer who had first
introduced Thomas to Lucas - Lucas was a
business partner, in fact, sharing a passion for
original comic book artwork (they had swung
by Thomas’s apartment to admire a Carl Barks
painting of Scrooge McDuck). Lippincott made
the pitch, armed with a stack of Ralph
McQuarrie’s pre-production paintings.

“They showed me them one at a time, telling
the story,” Thomas remembers. “So many
concepts I’d never heard of before. Threepio
and Obi-Wan Kenobi and Han Solo and
Chewbacca the Wookiee... my head started
spinning from all these names. It was a little
hard to follow! I figured I’d hear them out, be
polite about it and wish them well with the
movie and that would probably be it.”

One picture changed his mind. “I saw this
one particular drawing, the so-called cantina

62 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

“I REALISED THATTHIS WASN'T
HARDCORESCIENCEEICTION-
ITWAS SPACE OPERA. AND I
MIGHTBE ABLE TO SELL THAT'

sequence with Han Solo about to get into a
shoot-out with an alien. At that point I got
interested. I realised that this wasn’t really
hardcore science fiction, it wasn’t 2001. It was
space opera, like the old Planet Comics. And I
thought well, I might be able to sell that. And it
might stretch Marvel in another direction.”

Marvel was in no state to take risks at this
point. For all its hype-fuelled chutzpah, the
self-styled House of Ideas was in financial
freefall, breaking even at best. Years from the
direct sales revolution that would target the
hardcore faithful of the comic shops, it still
depended on the newsstand frontline. Jim
Shooter, then associate editor, recalls the
company as “a mess throughout the
mid-’70s”. Titles were routinely
late, or wounded by unscheduled
reprints or fill-in issues. Shooter
remembers “jeers and
derision” over the decision
to take on Star Wars.

But Marvel was building a portfolio of brand
names - Conan, Planet Of The Apes, Logan's
Run - and had Holl3Twood ambitions. It also
helped that Lucasfilm essentially gave Marvel
the rights for free. The deal: the first five issues
would be royalty free for the first 100,000
copies. From issue six Star Wars would be
licenced by Lucasfilm and Fox to Marvel
Comics. The catch: the first two issues had to
be out before the film’s release in order to build
the buzz. Fox’s marketing department thought
Lippincott was insane for giving away the
rights. Marvel’s circulation department had its
own concerns - could it be done and dusted in
two issues, not six? Maybe even just one? It
could, said Thomas. But not by him.

“Once we made the deal for Star Wars we
sat around for several months because we
didn’t have any materials,” Thomas tells SFX.
“We didn’t get any real materials that we could
start working on until July, which is almost
half a year later.”

Thomas was sent a copy of the shooting
script. And then another, when he mislaid the

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original in a move to California. “I was slowly
unpacking all these boxes. A week or so later I
suddenly realised I didn’t have the script! I had
to get another copy from Lucas.”

Lucasfilm wanted a close adaptation. “Even
if they hadn’t I wouldn’t have wanted to change
it,” says Thomas. “What would have been the
sense of that? The dialogue was pretty exact. I
think I put in a few too many captions - based
on descriptions in the script - because I was
really worried that it was going to be hard to
follow in places. Of course I purple prosed
them up a little bit, but the prose was very
purple in the screenplay!”

Issue four opens with Han, Luke, Leia and
Chewie blasting Stormtroopers in the bowels
of the Death Star. As the weapons ZIK, ZRAP,
CRUNK and FZZZ, a caption breezily states
“We’re kind of in a hurry this issue, so pay
attention.” “We were trying to sell this to
Marvel readers so I would combine what was
there in the script with the way I would
ordinarily write a comic book,” Thomas says.
“That’s the Marvel style. That’s the way Stan
had set the thing.”

Lucasfilm had approached Marvel with an
artist already in mind. Howard Chaykin was
a rising star of the American comics scene
whose brisk, dynamic style meshed with
McQuarrie’s. Lucas had been particularly
impressed by Chaykin’s creation Cody

Starbuck, an interstellar rogue cut from the
same swashbuckling cloth as Han Solo.
Chaykin was commissioned to create a poster
to promote the movie at Comic Con ’76.

HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

Lucas met with the Marvel creators on 27 July
1976, 11 days after Star Wars wrapped principal
photography. “[The film] starts slow and
builds,” he warned them. “The first couple of
issues you’re going to be really scraping to try
and make something happen.” Chaykin told
him “the kid who plays Luke is a little soft in
the face... he’s got a great cleft and that’s fine,
but he looks like 16, and I’m going to harden
him up.” Harrison Ford’s physiognomy met
with more approval. “Han Solo is perfect. He
looks like I drew him. He looks like my cliche
mercenary hero. He looks like Starbuck.”

Thomas remembers meeting the then-
unknown Ford. “We were introduced in the
office one day. He sort of knew about the comic
book but I don’t think he cared - I don’t think
he cared about the movie! Then I ran into him
at a party and he made this reference to his
‘so-called career’, which I always remember. It
couldn’t have been more than a few days or a
week before the movie came out and he wasn’t
going to be able to say that much longer... His
life was about to change forever.”

TIME MACHINE
MARVEL STAR WARS

MARVEL

TEAM-UP?

A galaxy too far away...

Could ’70s Marvelites have seen Spider-Man
sharing an adventure with Luke Skywalker?
Or Wolverine going toe-to-toe with
Chewbacca? Probably not, it seems. “There
was never any talk of integrating the Star
Wars characters into the Marvel Universe,”
reveals Roy Thomas. “I wasn’t really in
favour of it. I hadn’t even allowed them to
cross over Conan with the Marvel characters.
Star Wars is supposed to be ‘a long time
ago’, so it would have to be a time travel
story in addition to everything else. Of
course, you can do anything that you can
work out a contract and split the money for!”

Star Wars was a lifeline for Marvel. Sales
were good on the first two issues, stratospheric
on the third as the film exploded. Reprints,
multiple formats and international licences
rescued the company from its immediate
financial straits. The title would continue
beyond the six-issue adaptation as Thomas
became the first writer to propel Lucas’s heroes
“Beyond the movie! Beyond the galaxy!” But
his first story - a cosmic Magnificent Seven
pastiche, foregrounding Han and Chewie and
notoriously featuring a gun-slinging green
rabbit named Jaxxon, much to Lucas’s dismay
- would be his last. There were too many
restrictions now, too many cautious eyes at
Lucasfilm. The Luke and Leia romance was
off-limits. Darth Vader too. That throwaway
mention of the Clone Wars? Don’t go there.

“All of a sudden it was this big sacred cow,”
Thomas remembers. “There were suddenly
layers and layers to get through to do anything.
It was really George Lucas’s dream - and that’s
great. I loved the movie and I’m happy it’s had
the life it’s had, but it wasn’t my dream. I
wasn’t interested in being a minor functionary
on Star Wars. I’m really happy to have been
part of it - and I’m really happy that I got out
of it as quickly as I could!”

No regrets, then? Thomas smiles. “I should
have just directly come out and asked George
for a bonus!” €>

/ Like SFX on Facebook -facebook.com/SFXmagazine

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 63

LARA PULVER

The Sherlock star is out for blood as the Underworld saga returns

' Words by Nick Setchfield /// Photography by Sarah Dunn •

A S Sir Arthur Conan Doyle told us, “To

Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman”.
Lara Pulver’s 2012 turn as high-end kinkster
Irene Adler in Sherlock gave her a career
boost as sharp as the crack of a riding crop,
earning her instant internet worship and
setting fire to the twitching net curtains of
the Daily Mail. Now she’s the villain in Underworld:
Blood Wars, a key player in the centuries-old
grudge-match between the vampires and the Lycans.
It’s a role that called for her to back-flip in leather
and heels, wield a mean Spanish rapier and knock
back a goblet of blood. “I think it was diluted grape
juice!” she tells SFX. “We only did two or three takes
because I was like, T’m going to get a sugar high from
this!”’ So, it wasn’t a cheeky swig of Beaujolais, then?
“No, I requested the Merlot but it didn’t come!”

This is the fifth Underworld film - and your first. How
did it feel to jump into the franchise?

© I rewatched the original Underworld. They were very
headstrong about bringing it back to the roots of the first
film - they said, “If you don’t watch any more, it’s fine.” But
I had to do my homework to a certain degree because some
of the characters I speak about were introduced in later
films. This genre isn’t always my go-to thing but I saw this
film yesterday and it was so entertaining. It’s fast, slick and
it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Anna Foerster, our director,
has such a wonderful wit and zest for life, and it’s so evident
in this film. It’s hugely helped my character, because she is
so fun and sexy and badass. It just has space for that.

So who is Semira?

© She’s the leader of the Eastern coven. She’s a slightly
wounded soul. It’s almost like she’s seeking power for some
sort of validation. When she discovers that Selene’s blood
would mean she’d be immortal then that quest for power
becomes like a laser to her. She’s a politician. She’s also a
manipulator. So yes, a politician [laughs]!

How do you get into the mindset of a vampire?

© Oh gosh... look good in black! What’s kind of weird is the
second you’ve got those teeth in, and the eyes, and you’re in
Prague shooting in these wonderful sets, it’s your reality.
How did you cope with the fangs?

fangs! You have your softer fangs and then you have your
battle fangs. It’s weird how comfortable you become with
them. What’s slightly disconcerting is that if you watch the
playback you don’t look like yourself - they change your
face shape. They heighten your bone structure, make you
more sullen, make your jaw look more pronounced. It’s
borderline animalistic, I guess.

Actors always need to find the truth of any character
they play. But was part of you dying to smack your lips
and relish being a villain?

© I was very aware of never becoming a caricature. I could
have chewed the furniture but I was really strict on myself
Anna would say to me, “Go a little further in the next take...”
I think I was playing safe. There’s such a fine line between
being believable and becoming the pantomime villainess.
You need to allow the whole picture to do it for you. It’s a
culmination of the look, the silhouette, the style, the genre.
It’s finding the nuances and the line you cannot cross.
Sherlock changed your profile overnight. How did it feel
to go viral like that?

So long as the support structure around you - your ma and
pa, your beloved, your friends that you’ve known for 30
years - still know that you’re the goofball who’s going to
burn the pasta when they come over, then you stay
grounded. And also, it’s transitory, you know? That stuff will
come, and it will go, and that’s part of having a career, and
having longevity as an actor. It’s wonderful when you look
at the actors in our country, the Maggie Smiths and the Judi
Denchs - and you see there’s a journey to go on there. And
who knows if those peaks and troughs will be more extreme
with 2Ist century technology? I think ultimately it’s a
compliment. It’s literally people going, “We like your work.”
Would you like a rematch with Sherlock?

© Gosh, if they can match what they did... or top it! That’s a
hard feat. It was such a beautifully crafted episode, from the
writing to the cinematography to Paul McGuigan’s
direction, the combination of the whole thing. Top it if you
can, for all of us! But it’s also so tricky because it’s hard not
to become self-aware of something that happened back in
2012, and people’s opinion of it. Can you go back to
something objectively? I don’t know. I don’t know how the
boys have gone back season after season. Maybe it’s best to
leave with your head held high! ®

Underworld: Blood Wars opens on 13 January.

Biodata ®

Occupation

^ Actress

Born

^ 1 September
1980

From

^ Southend-on-
Sea, Essex
Greatest Hits

^ Sherlock,

Spooks, Game Of
Thrones, Fleming,
Da Vinci’s Demons
Random Fact
^ In a stage
production of
Grease she
understudied
everyone from
Frenchie to Rizzo.
“Which wig do you
want to put on
tonight, Lara?”

64 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

/ Follow SFX on Twitter - twitter.com/SFXmagazine

GETTY (1)

LARAPULVER

BRYAN CAIRNS IS ON SET FOR THE INCEN
^ . SECOND SEASON OF THE EXPANSE

66 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

ttg

L r^ . Y^ 1

THE EXPANSE

repare yourselves

for war. Yes,
intergalactic conflict
appears imminent in
season two of The
Expanse, Syfy’s
future-set saga based
on the novels by James SA Corey. By the
end of the first season, rogue ship’s
captain James Holden, his crew and
disgruntled detective Joe Miller found
themselves swept up in a massive conspiracy
that could pit Earth against Mars.

The finale found Holden and Miller
discovering a horrific secret that was clearly
worth killing for. Protogen, a security firm from
Earth, had unleashed an infectious, sentient
alien agent, known as the protomolecule, onto
the Eros Station, one of the first staging posts
of mankind’s colonisation of the solar system.
That little experiment resulted in the death
of over a million people on board. The
protomolecule continued to grow, with the
deceased reanimated as infected, zombie-like
monsters. Hit by a dose of radiation, Holden
and Miller barely escaped the station alive...

“They are still being treated for the radiation
poisoning they got on Eros,” executive
producer Naren Shankar tells SEX. “The gang
is opening the safe they got from Anubis [the
stealth torpedo ship owned by Protogen].

Then they realise they have a sample of the
protomolecule in their hands. What are they
going to do with it? That’s where we start with
our guys.”

Fittingly, the series is also expanding its
world this year. “At the very beginning of the
premiere, we’re bringing in a new perspective,
which is the Martians,” Shankar continues.
“Through Sergeant Bobbie Draper and her
Martian marine team, we see the Martian
perspective truly for the first time on the show.
We had a little taste of them on board the
Donnager in episode three and four last season,
but this is a much more intimate look at
Martian culture and how they view the Earth.
It’s an interesting way to get into [the book]
Caliban’s War.”

CORRIDORS OF PONER

SEX is visiting The Expanse’s Toronto set in
early September. Today cast and crew are busy
filming portions of episodes 11 and 12, “Here
There Be Dragons” and “The Monster And The
Rocket”. As we watch, Holden (Steven Strait)
and Amos (Wes Chatham) kick open a door
and creep down a dark corridor. Guns are
cocked and cradled in their arms. Sweeping
flashlights survey the area as they advance.

‘You didn’t even try to stop me from bashing
his head in,” says Amos.

‘You’ve taught me a lot about futility,”
Holden responds.

“Nah, I think I just beat you to it.” ^

MARCH 2017 1 SEX MAGAZINE I 67

THE EXPANSE

"HIS PHILOSOPHY
BECOMES THE
MEANS JUSTIFY
THE ENDS"

Steven Strait is Jim Holden

What is Holden’s mindset going into
this season?

He’s driven by guilt and by his feelings
of responsibility for what has happened.

As he progresses further into this story,
the protomolecule almost becomes
Holden’s whale. He has this Captain Ahab
narrative going on. He starts to descend
into this myopic madness because he just
needs to fix things. He needs to feel like
he’s in control.

How are Holden and Miller bouncing off
each other?

You have this jaded cop and this naive,
idealistic kid. As events transpire, they
start to grow closer to each other. Miller
starts to finally find things to believe in.
Holden has to let go of his beliefs because
he’s being confronted with the reality of
what’s going on. The more responsibility
he takes on, the more he has to chip away
at himself.

What’s the deal with Holden’s blue
hand in the teaser trailer?

I don’t want to give the truth away. He is
either infected or it’s his own trauma
haunting him. As an actor, the use of the
trauma and PTSD were major driving
forces for how I justified Holden’s descent.

What sequence tops Holden having sex
in zero gravity in season one?

There’s a scene in episode four where he
does something he doesn’t want to. You
feel for him because he struggles through
the whole decision-making process. At the
end of the day, he does pull the trigger
and that’s the turn. That’s the shift. His
philosophy becomes the means justify
the ends.

“The protomolecule turned an asteroid into
a missile,” notes Holden. “If we can stop it from
doing something worse, it’s worth cracking one
shithead’s skull.”

Clearly the stakes - and pressure - are
higher than ever.

“The problem with mystery conspiracy
stories is the longer they go on, the more
encrusted everything gets by the weight of the
plot,” Shankar says. ‘“No, it’s not the man
behind the curtain. It’s the man behind behind
the curtain.’ The only way you can continue
that is by widening the scope of the conspiracy.
Every time you do that, the plot threads
multiply. There was a lot of shadow play in
season one. ‘No, it’s not that guy. No, it’s not the
stealth ship or the Martians.’ It was, ‘Not, not,
not’ because you don’t want to give people the
answers. What we did at the end of the season
was resolve as many of those questions as
possible, so that when season two started, we
could move the show forward.

“Instead of playing with conspiracies and
mysteries, we’re playing in a more accessible
action/reaction structure in terms of character
and actual plot,” Shankar continues. “It’s an
easier way to understand the story because you
don’t have to maintain the same contradictory
versions of the same event in your head. The

drama doesn’t hinge on that. Action reveals
character, and character drives action. It’s this
beautiful circle. That’s what we’re trying to do
this season. At the core of it, we have a great set
of characters and situations that reveal more
and more about our people and let them learn
more about this protomolecule and what’s
happening with it and seeing what it does.”

Although Miller and Holden share the same
goal, the pair bicker over tactics and priorities.
The two came together under some pretty dire
circumstances and, it seems, still haven’t
particularly warmed to each other...

“Obviously, Holden and Miller helped each
other get out of a very bad situation,” Shankar

44 irs TENSE.
THERE'S A LOT
GOING ON ANO
STUFF COMES
TO A HEAO

68 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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THE EXPANSE

> ' ('"V

t\ \

-tt

'HE KEEPS
MAKING SOME
PRETTY BAD
CHOICES'

Wes Chatham is
Amos Burton

What else can audiences expect to see
this year?

What Tm most excited about is that you
are going to have a strong understanding
of what the protomolecule is. Also, Miller
and I have a confrontation because I killed
his partner in the first season.

Amos comes across as the loose
cannon. How does he feel about physical

says. “At the end of episode 10 last year, Amos
shot Miller’s oldest friend, Sematimba. It’s a
complicated dynamic. Without Sematimba, our
guys wouldn’t have gotten off Eros. If Amos
hadn’t shot him, Holden and Miller would have
been stuck there because the gang would have
left. It’s very tense. There’s a lot going on and
stuff comes to a head. These guys are all getting
to know each other, so it’s a new dynamic.”

TAKING SIDES

“Another big arc for season two is people
declaring whose side they are on,” Shankar
continues “Holden is from Earth, but trying to

between Earth and Mars. We have two
superpowers that have never fought before and
they are slowly building to the point where
they open up and blast each other. On the way
there, there’s a lot of shit that happens, which
is quite big. There’s going to be a lot of amazing
space sequences, which is the show’s signature.
There’s a ton of stuff that people are going to be
blown away by.”

Followers of the novels already have some
inkling of where the show is heading, eagerly
anticipating that certain key sequences and
developments will make it to the small screen.
Shankar is only too happy to tease.

What will viewers learn about Amos in
season two?

You are going to learn about Amos’s
past and his point of view. When the
circumstances challenge his family
and relationships, Amos is forced to be
in a situation where he can’t lean on
anybody else. He has to start making his
own choices and decisions. He keeps
making some pretty bad choices, so it’s
dealing with the fallout of those and what
it means.

stay neutral. He’s trying not to really choose a
side. Alex is a Martian and has a Martian ship.
Earth and Mars are cruising towards armed
combat. Everybody wants this incredibly

“What happens on the Eros Station is
amazing and is going to look incredible,” he
tells SFX. “When you go back to Eros and see
what the protomolecule has done, these are

violence and killing?

What’s great about the action
sequences is they are very telling about
Amos’s way of looking at violence. If
people assume that he’s the muscle of the

powerful protomolecule. It’s about picking a

beautiful sequences in the book. Executive

group, that’s not really how it is. He

side and declaring who you have allegiance to.”

Season two will continue to feature political
intrigue, conflicted characters and tough
choices. However, Shankar promises plenty of

producers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, who
wrote the pilot, have talked about a specific
scene that’s at the end of [novel] Leviathan
Wakes that we did this season. They’ve been

doesn’t have bravado in that way. He
doesn’t see himself as a tough guy. Amos
is functional in his violence. He’s a survivor.
When something is in the way of his
family’s survival, he knows something has

crowd-pleasing explosions and action too, from
the moment the premiere kicks off
“The episode begins with the Martian
marines in the midst of a battle. This season

fixated on it for three years. Mark will say,
‘That scene is why we wanted to do these
books.’ It’s nice to bring that to life.” €>

to be done. It doesn’t weigh on him
emotionally like it does on other people.
What makes Amos scary is he’s willing
to kill and do it in a way that doesn’t
disturb his sleep. His violence is quick

has a lot more militaristic flair to it because a

The Expanse season two will air on Netflix in

and to the point.

big portion of it is this slow movement of battle

the UK, and Syfy in the US from early February.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 69

The creator of farfifo is venturing
into the world of Marvei
mufanfs. Richard Edwards gets
the lowdown on Legion, an
X-Men TV show like nothing
you’ve seen before

LEGION

t’s nearly 17 years since the X-Men

made their live-action debut in Bryan
Singer’s game-changing 2000 movie. Since
then they’ve appeared in another eight
^ films (to date), and been sequelised,
prequelised, spun-off and even broken the
fourth wall. It’s safe to say, though, that none of
their previous screen adventures have been
quite like Legion.

The new TV series is the brainchild of Noah
Hawley, the master showrunner who’s
sucessfully riffed on the Coen brothers to make
two seasons of the magnificent Fargo. And with
something like that quirky tale of crime in the
US Midwest on your CV, you were hardly likely
to go off and simply make an X-take on Agents
Of SHIELD or The Flash...

“Noah’s take is certainly an alternate take on
the X-Men,” explains Legion and Fargo
executive producer John Cameron. “In other
words it’s unique to him and to his vision. It
doesn’t feel like an X-Men film, certainly our
story doesn’t, but it’s recognisably the X-Men
universe in the sense there are humans with
mutant abilities. It has its own look, feel and
approach that’s quite different from anything
we’ve seen before. We’re very enamoured with
the reinvention of genre - it’s been something
that has fascinated Noah for some time - and
Legion is its own unique take on the universe.

In fact I think it’s closer to some of the comic
arcs that have been published over the years.
The famous Chris Claremont arcs on the
X-Men certainly inform this on some sort of
granular level.”

Legion focuses on David Haller, an extremely
powerful mutant whose off-the-charts psychic
and telekinetic abilities manifest in multiple
personalities - a state of being that means he’s
spent much of his life in mental hospitals. In
the comics he’s the son of one Professor Xavier,
but that doesn’t mean Legion exists in the
X-Men movie continuity that we know -
though, equally, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t.

“I think that is yet to be discovered [if it’s the
same universe as the movies], and I mean that
in all honesty, I’m not trying to be cute,”
Cameron teases. “In other words I could easily
make the case for [it being the same universe, a
parallel universe or something else entirely]. In
the arc of the first season, hints are developed
and glimpses are shared, but I don’t think
there’s a definitive answer to the question. I
think it’s subjective to the viewer, so it will be
interesting to see their reaction when it airs.
Personally I think it’s an alternate take on the
universe. It’s a show with layered realities and
different versions of reality that overlap
sometimes and create a kind of tapestry of a
world. Is it the same universe that the ^

MARCH 2017 1 SEX MAGAZINE I 71

X-Men of the films inhabit? Perhaps, could be,
but this is certainly a different and unique
corner of that world.”

As yet, we don’t even know when Legion is
set. While the first X-Men movie was based in
the near future, and First Class, Days Of Future
Past and Apocalypse had distinct ’60s, ’70s and
’80s settings, respectively, the sense of time is
rather fuzzier for Legion. Indeed, the only clues
are a slight ’70s/’80s vibe to the fashions and
backdrops. “It’s set in its own time,” Cameron
teases cryptically. “It’s fun to try and figure that
out, but we’ve never come down on a hard
number or year, or said it’s present day. It’s
unique in the sense you can’t pin it down to a
time period.”

One thing that is certain, however, is that in
this particular branch of the X-universe(s),
mutants are yet to be outed to the wider world.
“Some people are aware they exist, but the
general public are not,” Cameron confirms. “As
with anything else, there are people who are
protective of them, and people who are
frightened and want to control them.”

DEPARTING NOW

The combination of David Haller’s abilities and
his state of mind are perhaps the principal
reason why the show promises to be a
departure from the usual comic-book
adaptation. The trailer teases consciousnesses

44 There’s a love
story at the heart of
/off/off as there
is in most great
narratives, I helleve 99

switching between bodies, the world literally
being turned on its head, and even a
Bollywood-inspired dance sequence. “It’s
grounded in the physics of reality,” says
Cameron, “although there are different planes
of existence, and dreams, and as we all know
anything can happen in a dream, and kind of
does in the show.”

Also, much of Legion is seen from the
perspective of Haller, who may not be an
entirely reliable narrator. “I think that’s
certainly a good way to put it,”

Cameron admits. “In other words
this is a young man who’s been
told his whole life that he’s
mentally ill and he’s struggled
with that and the effects of that,
but then it becomes clear that
perhaps there’s more to it than
that - in other words maybe it’s
not a question of mental

illness but a question of the extraordinary
unknown and untapped abilities that he
possesses. Then, of course, the question
becomes, that maybe it’s a combination of both.

“It’s a show greatly infused with the idea of
memory, and also constructed memory, like is
this real, did it happen, or is this something
that somebody has projected or constructed for
me to believe happened. It’s complex in that
regard, and when he’s telling his own story or
we’re seeing things through his eyes, we need to
try and get to the bottom of what we’re seeing.

“I think the fragility of someone potentially
dealing with mental illness at the same
time as trying to handle extraordinary
powers was fascinating to all of us,”
Cameron continues. “There’s a sense
that there’s fragility and yet extreme
strength at war with each other, and
how it’s going to come out.”

Did that mean extensive research
into the sort of real-world conditions
that might be affecting Haller?

72 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

LEGION

a romantic relationship with the latter.

‘There’s a love story at the heart of this as
there is in most great narratives, I believe,” says
Cameron. “It’s pivotal, I think. It’s definitely
two wounded people who find each other over
the course of this story, and it’s beautiful and
heart-wrenching and has all those great
emotional beats that make stories greatly
affecting for an audience, I hope.”

Another character who seems destined to be
key to the narrative is Melanie Bird (Jean
Smart, yet another Furgo connection). “She’s a
scientist and a researcher who is one of the
people who is aware of the idea of mutant
ability in the world, and has great sympathy
and a caring approach for people who are
afflicted or struggling with their powers. She’s
kind of a caretaker in a certain way of lost and
wounded individuals.”

As to whether we’ll be seeing David’s dad
Charles Xavier and other characters from the
familiar mutant world, we’ll have to wait and
see. “I think it’s entirely possible. I have to be a
little cagey on that in the sense that I think
we’ll all need to discover that together.

“I think there’s an overarching plan,”
Cameron adds. “We’ve learned in this first
season that it’s the type of show that wants to
remain open to inspiration. It’s going to be a
fun journey forward.” ©

Legion debuts on Fox in the UK on 9 February.

X ^

k <

IL ' “The show is not particularly about the reality

B of mental illness - it is a take on a particular

person and his particular issues and concerns
|: - but one wants to be sensitive and not purely

in it for entertainment value, so yes, a lot of
research went into that. Hopefully we have
been respectful of the real issue.”

ND MORE MR POSH GUY

The man tapped to be Legion/David Haller is
Dan Stevens, who’s still best known on these
shores for paying posh in Downton Abbey, but
has since showed his versatility with the likes
of taut thriller The Guest.

“He’s a great actor,” says Cameron. “This is a
multi-multi faceted character, as you can
imagine with the idea of the mental illness and
the personality, and the idea of extraordinary
powers and the question of whether it’s real or
not real. Dan somehow manages to juggle all
that and bring all of those facets into crystalline
focus, and he’s very human at the same time.
There’s a sensitivity and humanity that
underlines everything that Dan does that
makes the character of David - as difficult as
his life is, and the situations that he faces are
- very approachable and understandable.”

Other characters in the mental hospital
include Lenny Busker (Parks And Recreation’s
Aubrey Plaza) and the Pink Floyd referencing
Syd Barrett (Fargo’s Rachel Heller) - Haller has

“V'lAxtx

0 First appearing in in 1985’s New

Mutants #25, Legion was introduced by
Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz
during their groundbreaking run on the
junior X-book. Described by Claremont as
“an amalgam personality”, he is the long
lost son of Charles Xavier and Holocaust
survivor Gabrielle Haller.

“David is a reflection of the
personalities that are caught within him,”
explains Claremont. “When David was a
child, his stepfather was slain by a
Palestinian terrorist and that catalysed his
■ mutant abilities. In rage and fear, he
essentially absorbed the young man
attacking him into his own body. From
then on, there were two people living
inside his head, but over time they come
to realise that they are not enemies.”

However, Legion didn’t come into his
own until he became the focus of Simon
Spurrier’s run on X-Men Legacy in 2012.
“Marvel suggested making it a solo book
based around this character who has
- previously always been treated as a
villain,” recalls Spurrier. “From that point it
became all about this kid, who had
previously always been portrayed as a
sympathetic but wildly dangerous
problem child, who through no fault of his
own could go ‘kaboom’ at any moment.”

Spurrier was determined to make
Legion as relatable as possible.
“Immediately, you make it about his
personal struggle as well as all the outer
stuff that has to happen in a superhero
comic,” he says. “Before you know it, you
end up making the story as much about
mental illness as it is about flying around
and bashing people.” Stephen Jewell

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MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 73

The streets of GOTHAM are deadlier than ever.
Tara Bennett talks dark knight, big city with the
people shaping Bruce Wayne’s destiny

I f you’re trying to fight the good fight

in Gotham City, it might be easier to
just relocate to a new postcode. If
we’ve learned anything from the
Bat-prequel show it’s that the villains
have their claws into the city. Corruption, it
seems, is a virus that takes down everyone
eventually, even an upstanding, honest guy
like Jim Gordon.

Over two seasons, rookie Gotham City
Police Department detective Gordon (Ben
McKenzie) has been through the wringer,
forced to make decisions that have upended his
moral compass. Season three finds him alone,
working outside Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue)

and the GCPD grid in an attempt to collect the
busload of Arkham Asylum escapees loosed
upon the streets in the season two finale.

An ever- expanding rogues’ gallery is
infiltrating the city, from legacy baddies like
Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Oswald
“Penguin” Cobblepot (Robin Lord Taylor), to
newer problems like Basil “Clayface” Karlo
(Brian McManamon) and Professor Hugo
Strange (BD Wong). An evolving nest of
power-seekers - and monstrous Indian Hill
experimental subjects - is on the streets, and
that’s how executive producer Danny Cannon
says they’re keeping the series fresh.

“I was really nervous at the end of last year.

spilling monsters out into the city,” Cannon
admits to SFX. “We’ve never been a ‘monster
show’ but I think with Professor Strange and
all his abilities, it organically allowed us to
create not CG people, but real people. It’s like
an old 1920s freak show. As long as we could
keep our feet on the ground and make these
things believable, I was into it. What it’s done
for the show now is it goes further into creating
a world where a vigilante like Batman is
needed because the city is out of control.”

And because there is no Batman yet, the city
needs a hero like Gordon even more. But it may
need to wait while he deals with his own
existential issues. “The subtitle of the season is
‘Heroes Will Fall’ and that’s very indicative of
where Jim’s going this season,” actor Ben
McKenzie says of his alter ego. “All of the

74 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

heroes are flirting with the dark side, and are
dipping into it, which is the case for Jim.”

The second season finale threw Gordon for
a loop and he’s still reeling in the season three
premiere. ‘Tn the finale, he was going to see
Lee (Morena Baccarin) and immediately the
outcome of that is not good,” McKenzie tells
SFX. “So that snaps him back again, not into a
vengeful place but into a place of detachment
and an inability to pursue this goal that he’s
had all along: to clean up the city and do right
by this young boy, Bruce Wayne (David
Mazouz). So he’s detached and alone, just
getting along.

“But breaking news: Jim has his own
apartment in season three!” McKenzie laughs,
amused by Gordon’s chronic lack of home base.
“He’s such a freeloader, always at the lady’s
place. So he has his own apartment and he’s
living in a very solitary environment. I imagine
the movie Leon: The Professional He’s sort of a

bounty hunter, living alone and drinks a lot. He
keeps to himself in this dark, Zen-like void.”

FACING FACTS

McKenzie says Gordon is about to face some
harsh realities about himself “I think he scares
himself at times with how far he’s willing to go.
He struggles with that and feels enormous guilt
over some of the things he’s done that he’s not
proud of, particularly when it destroys a
relationship, including the one with Leslie
Thompkins. And that’s the noble warrior we’ve
always wanted to create here. He’s truly a hero
in a lawless land and he has no choice but to do
some terrible things to do good.”

McKenzie says the darker Jim goes the more
he ties into the hero the city will get when
Bruce finally becomes Batman. His choice to
give Gordon a raspier voice is, it seems, a bit of
foreshadowing. “I try to drop my register and

imagine myself in a noir or a Western,”
McKenzie explains. “I don’t allow that to kill
all inflection in him, but he’s always been to me
the precursor to Batman in our story. He’s
always been the guy who is trying to keep the
wolves at bay and keep the city together before
there is a Batman. So there are echoes of
Batman’s gruffness in there.”

Luckily for Bruce and the city, Gordon hasn’t
totally turned to the dark side, but McKenzie
does admit that getting to embody Clayface’s
interpretation of Gordon last season was a
blast. He even hopes to do it again this season.
“I had a lot of fun with it and there’s always a
chance,” the actor teases. “The way that Bruno
and I talked about [the bad version of Jim
Gordon] was that Clayface had only seen Jim
tied down, yelling at Hugo Strange, so he
assumes he is a loud, angry man. He has no idea
if he has any moral fibre. So when Clayface
becomes Jim, he’s a bully and a jerk and a ^

/ Like SFX on Facebook -facebook.com/SFXmagazine

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 75

misogynist. We like to take the piss out of
Gordon’s self-seriousness,” McKenzie laughs.

“So now that we’ve established the rough
parameters on the show, we can play with them
a little bit,” the actor continues. “It’s not so
much body-swapping, but there is an ability to
shape-shift in a way, or exchange identities. We
also saw this other Bruce Wayne at the end of
season two, so that Bruce Wayne will be around
for season three. There’s a real opportunity to
have fun with that kind of stuff. The concepts
of identity are so pervasive in comics, but
definitely in DC and the Batman comics.”

YOUNG TALENT

When it comes to young Master Bruce, Cannon
says a huge strength for the series has been
David Mazouz’s mature interpretation of the
complicated youth. “David has done such a
good job of this character,” the executive
producer enthuses. “Bruce Wayne is growing
up before our eyes and this year he’s going to
have to take on a new personality to protect
those around him. Too many eyes were on him.”

In particular, the eyes of the Court of Owls, a
secret society behind Strange’s experiments,
are very dangerous indeed because they are
aware that Bruce, along with Gordon and
Lucius Fox (Chris Chalk), are snooping in
unwelcome corners of their territory. Because
of that. Cannon says, “Bruce has to start saying,
‘No, I’m not that Bruce Wayne. I’m actually a
brat billionaire.’ An irresponsible, spoiled
person to deflect the attention he’s getting.
That’s another Batman-esque quality of living
two lives. Also he’s created a relationship with
Lucius, who is starting to realise there is

44 We’re bringing
in a whole new
crop of villains
this season 99

something to this kid that nobody else has. He’s
incredibly driven so he’s going to help him too,
even though he warns him where that path to
righteousness could lead. We are creating
somebody with a team around him now. He can
start to fantasise and imagine what it would be
like to be his own police force.”

Cannon promises some serious female
influence on Bruce this season with Ivy Pepper
(Clare Foley) and Selina Kyle (Camren
Bicondova) in for some major events. Ivy, aka
future supervillainess Poison Ivy, will get more
of an origin story than she’s had in other
mediums. “There were a few Ivy origin stories
but DC never landed on one, so it was left up to
us,” Cannon shares. “Because Clare was so
young we could go anywhere we wanted to
with it, but a transformation happens within
that character that is catastrophic and allows
us to dig a little deeper. She also interfaces with
Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle a lot more. With
everything going on with Selina this year, who
digs back into her origin story, something
happens there and she will never be the same
again. A darkness is happening with Selina’s
backstory which is propelled by the Ivy story.
By the end of the season, the Cat we thought
we knew is changed forever.”

It sounds like Gotham's typical chaos is being
pushed to 11 - and avowed comic book geek
McKenzie can’t wait to dance with the devils.
“We’re bringing in a whole new crop of villains,
including Mad Hatter who is a personal
favourite of mine from the comics. There’s a
lot of good stuff on the page there for him to
chew some scenery!” ®

Gotham returns to Channel 5 soon.

76 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Bj^NDG

ihrj

Si^o9^F

AEt^OFLAW

©jFHER]

AGENTS OF SHIELD

ejoice, fans of freedom and all

that is good - SHIELD is
officially back in business.

Recap time, Eyes Only: after
the covert organisation found
itself infiltrated by Hydra in the second season
of Agents Of SHIELD it was publicly
dismantled. Director Coulson (Clark Gregg)
and his team created an underground
operation to battle Hydra. With the help of a
team of genetically modified Inhumans called
the Secret Warriors, they succeeded in
stamping out Hydra by the end of season three.

Keeping up with the big-screen events of
Captain America: Civil War, season four
welcomes SHIELD back as a public entity, now
led by Director Jeffrey Mace (Jason O’Mara),
helping to enforce the Sokovia Accords.

That development doesn’t sit well for all
the agents, especially Daisy Johnson (Chloe
Bennet) who has left SHIELD to operate as
Quake, protecting targeted Inhumans from
watchdog groups trying to wipe them out.

“The Inhumans are a metaphor for us in terms
of what it’s like to be different,” executive
producer and co-showrunner Jed Whedon
tells SEX. “So being able to explore some of
those themes opens up a lot of story that is very
personal to a lot of people for different reasons.” ^

MARCH 2017 1 SEX MAGAZINE I 79

"HE’S A
RIGHTEOUS

V DUDE” ^

Gabriel Luna

Ghost Rider

Your version of Ghost Rider isn’t
just a fiaming skuii of vengeance.
What makes him different?

^ The Ghost Rider is traditionally
this lone wolf, vigilante character
who does his own thing. While
that’s still true when Robbie
Reyes transforms, he maintains
this duty that he has towards his
brother, Gabe, which is excellent.

How wouid you
characterise Robbie?

^ Robbie is a very serious guy;
the strong silent type. He doesn’t
say any more than he has to. He’s
a righteous dude in his heart.

She’s going to twist
ankle in those heels.

What do you admire about
Robbie as a character?

% That he just wants to care for
his brother. He’s been thrust into
this position from a very early
age. He’s been taking care of him
since age 13. This beautiful,
orphan quality that he has is
something I can identify with. My
mother was 15 when she had me
and my father passed away
before I was born. It was just a
matter of that character being in
the world, and the fact that it
happened just in time for me to
slip into his shoes is something
I’m grateful for. i

Outside of flames and leather,
what’s Robbie’s style?

% He’s a cool dude who wears
his Levi’s and hi-top Vans.

He has the cool. East LA

vibe and is probably
skater dude working
on cars with his
headphones.

How quickly do
Robbie and
SHIELD find
themselves
intertwined?

We take our time.
It’s a situation
where they aren’t
so much of a team,
as heading in the
same direction, with
the same target.

“Daisy is very much at the centre of that/’
adds fellow executive producer and co-
showrunner Maurissa Tancharoen. “Now
she’s gone rogue she is on a mission to protect
Inhumans. Placing her at the centre of that
helps us to explore the nature of what it means
to be an Inhuman in a world that is watching
them, and in a world where people might think
it’s not favourable for them to be in society.”

What that leaves is a lot of uncertainty for
the agents left behind. As Whedon explains,

“In terms of SHIELD, that’s bureaucracy, so
that will affect how our team operates and will
set up some new rules for us to bend, or
break.” Coulson is now back in the field
with Agent May (Ming-Na Wen) and,
says Whedon, “When we see him, he’s
comfortable not being coach anymore.”

Tancharoen adds, “It’s an adjustment,
of course, for him and everyone around
him, but there’s a weight lifted.”

Now the heavy lifting falls
on Director Mace’s
shoulders, but audiences
don’t get to meet him
until the second episode
of the season, “Meet The
New Boss”. Keeping the
new guy as enigmatic
as possible, Whedon
I teases, “We can’t say

a ton about the
character, but he has
a very different
management style than
Coulson did. You’ll see
that contrast instantly.”
Tancharoen laughs
diabolically, “Jason is doing
exactly what we imagined...”

Another big storyline continuing this season
concerns the Life Model Decoys being
developed on the down low by Dr Holden
Radcliffe (John Hannah) with a secret assist
by Agent Fitz (Iain De Caestecker). Although
they’re trying to protect field agents from
danger, Whedon says the duo’s altruistic
intentions might not go as intended this season.
“When we come back, everyone on our show is
focused in different ways, trying to prevent
what happened last year from ever happening
again. The technology is presented as a
solution. In the beginning, LMDs pose an
opportunity to create something as a failsafe.
Technology is always started with that in mind,
but sometimes it’s used for other purposes.
We’ll see down the road where that goes.”

RIDING INTO TOWN

Season four also sees the much-hyped
introduction of Marvel icon Ghost Rider. A
supernatural character first seen in the comics
in 1972, every iteration of the flame- skulled
entity has preserved the core mythology of a
human trading their soul to enact vengeance
for some terrible loss in their life. Agents Of
SHIELD is adapting the Robbie Reyes version
of the character - introduced in 2013 as part of
the Marvel NOW! initiative - as an Angelino
seeking retribution from those who made his
beloved brother Gabe paraplegic.

Given SHIELD has never dipped into the
world of the occult, Whedon says it took a lot
of thought to find the right way to bring the
character into the show. “In the middle of last
year, we started talking about Ghost Rider,”
he shares. “It’s been a challenge in terms of
getting it right because we don’t want it to
not feel like our show. There were a lot of

AGENTS OF SHIELD

Jason O’Mara joins the
show as new Director
Jeffrey Mace.

Agent May enjoys the
chance to get back
into field work.

44 Mace has a
very different
management style
to Coulson 99

discussions, and [actor] Gabriel Luna was a key
factor in making sure it works.”

“His Robbie is very grounded,” Tancharoen
adds. “It’s the first time our show has waded
into the realm of the supernatural, even
touching on it. We’ve always grounded ourselves
in science, so it does raise some questions. It
does create a lot of challenges for our team.”

“He opens up a new world that Doctor
Strange is also opening up for the MCU,” says
Whedon. “Marvel’s always done a very good
job of introducing science into these elements,
or at least the question ‘How is it science?’ And
if it isn’t science, then it’s probably something
we don’t understand yet. So that’s how we’re
going to approach things right off the bat. We
are left with a lot of questions that will slowly
get answered in the first half of the season.”

The presence of Ghost Rider also allows the
series to enter darker territory, a move that
aligns it a little closer to the Marvel shows
playing on Netflix. Marvel TV boss Jeph Loeb
says Agents Of SHIELD’S move to a later time
slot in the States opened up a new path
of storytelling. “The idea that we were moving
to 10 o’clock meant that we could select a
more mature character and tell stories we
might not [at an earlier time],” he says. “I think
our fan base is expecting us to deliver with the
promise of a Ghost Rider, so this is an
opportunity to do that. When people see the

level of special effects for a television series,
they will be astonished, so that’s exciting too.”

CHARACTER OPTIONS

And for those worried that TV’s take on Ghost
Rider will be a compromised version of the
character, Loeb says, “I think at the end of the
day, we see ourselves as storytellers. The
Marvel publishing universe has been around
for 75 years. Take a character like Daredevil
who started out as a fun-loving, acrobatic,
smart-alec, in some people’s minds like
Spider-Man. It wasn’t until Frank Miller came
along [that] he was tortured and Catholic, with
a background we didn’t know an3^hing about.
That turned it into a crime story. So that can
happen, provided you stay true to your
characters. SHIELD has been a lot of things.
When [writer/artist] Jim Steranko took over
[the] SHIELD [comic] he made it more like
James Bond rather than a continuation of Nick
Fury and his Howling Commandos running
around in the present day. He brought to it
flying cars, weaponry, and a psychedelic sense,
with villains that were women with green hair!

“So there’s always another way to bend the
story and Agents Of SHIELD falls into that
same category,” he concludes. “When we first
started out we were at 8 o’clock, then 9 o’clock
and now it’s 10 o’clock. What it’s done for us, at
the end of the day, is tell stories that can bring
in a character like Ghost Rider but never lose
what makes the show work. That is the
chemistry between these six, and how different
each of them are. We’re a house that just added
the coolest garage ever because it’s got a black
hellfire car parked in it!” ®

Agents Of SHIELD returns to E4 in January.

“THERE’S A
iOT OF DAMAGE
V CONTROL”

Ming-Na Wen

is Agent May

Do you think May might have
wanted the Director job?

May wants to be out in the
field nnore. As a Director, she
would be doing that less and
doing nnore adnninistrative stuff.
She’s not a suit.

What does Couison’s demotion
mean for her?

% I think what’s so great about
hinn not being Director is that it
will give us an opportunity to be
out in the field nnore, and be on
nnore nnissions again like we did in
season one and season two.

With the MCU Sokovia Accords
in the mix, how does that
impact SHiELD?

We’re trying to figure out what
our real nnissions are at this point,
whether it’s to tackle the
Inhunnans, or bring thenn into the
fold. It’s also establishing what
SHIELD is to the public. There’s
a lot of damage control and
revitalising that image in the
public’s eye. It’s weird how we’re
in this real, heightened political
arena right now with mayhem and
chaos. It’s fun to play in a world
where you deal with the
governmental world of who these
people are versus who are they
protecting, or lying to, or
befriending. It’s so complicated.
We disguise it all in the fantastical
world of superpowers but it’s real
issues. Are we protecting our
citizens, or not?

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MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 81

REX (1)

M Night Shyamalan is
back with the genre-
bending, identity-
fracturing SPLIT.
Joseph McCabe has a
therapy appointment...

SPLIT

scientific fact but science can’t explain it at all.
They go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s true. A percentage of
the population cures themselves an5rway. Let’s
go on to our medicine...’ We hear of people
walking on fire and not getting burnt, or the
mom lifting the car off of the child. All those
exceptional things that happen, but this is a
daily occurrence that happens in every hospital
everywhere in the world... ‘Here, take this. It
cures you...’”

Shyamalan, the son of two physicians,
explores the chilling potential of the mind in
his new movie Split. It’s a film that looks at
DID (dissociative identity disorder), and asks
what might happen if multiple personalities
existing in a single person opened the door for
a new kind of psyche - one just a little bit more
than human.

“I’ve been fascinated by DID for a long time,”
Shyamalan tells SFX when we chat with him in
Los Angeles. “I was living in my parents’ house
when I heard James Cameron was going to
make a movie on DID. Back then it was called
multiple personality disorder. I was like, ‘Oh
my god, that’s gonna be amazing, the movie
he’s gonna make...’ I think it was the book The
Minds Of Billy Milligan, which is a true story
[about the first person in US history pardoned
for committing a crime due to DID]. I was like,
‘Man, I want to grow up and make that movie!’

“So it’s always been part of me. When I

wrote this character 15 years ago, that was part
of it. Ever since then, researching and getting
to know how the child’s brain works in
development and what happens when trauma
happens to you when you’re a child; and what
happens to the ability of the brain... It’s an
absolutely fascinating field.”

With a screenplay that required its lead actor
to embody several entirely different personalities,
from the most innocent to the most corrupt,
Shyamalan called on James McAvoy, who’d

taken a very different cinematic head trip as
Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies.

“We put together a hypothetical list of who
could do this. As soon as you start doing that
there’s hardly anyone. It’s like, who could do
the boy and ‘The Beast’? Who could do that
and not have you think it was silly? I met James
by chance for the first time last year. We started
talking and I was like, ‘God, this guy could do it.
This is him.’ Then I heard he was available, so I
gave him the script. He immediately emailed

CASE STUDIES

Five - at least - of pop culture’s greatest multiple personalities

TWO-FACE GOLLXJM

DRJEKYLLAND
MR HYDE

In exploring man’s potential
for both good and evil,
Victorian author Robert Louis
Stevenson put a hero and
villain in the same body and
paved the way for countless
creators to follow.

Like Jekyll and Hyde, the
most famous split personality
in comic books (Harvey Dent,
Batman’s friend turned
enemy) embodies humanity’s
dual nature; and takes things
further by examining the
tragic role played by chance.

The biggest war fought in
JRR Tolkien’s epic The Lord
Of The Rings trilogy isn’t
waged between armies, but
rather inside the tortured
mind of Smeagol, a Hobbit
corrupted by his precious, the
One Ring.

I i: A

NORMAN BATES

The most famous serial killer
in pop culture is the
protagonist/antagonist of
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, a
living testament to the adage
that “A boy’s best friend is his
mother” — even when a boy
is his mother.

BOBARCTOR/
AGENT FRED

The protagonist of Philip K
Dick’s A Scanner Darkiy, set in
a dystopian future, is, in the
author’s typical mind-twisting
fashion, both a drug user and
the narcotics officer sent to
spy on him and his friends.

84 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

back all these curse words: ‘Holy fuck! What
the fuck was that? That’s fucked up!’ I was like,
‘Great, let’s try it.’”

LIGHT FADING

Split is produced by indie horror mogul Jason
Blum through his Blumhouse Studios. And as
with Shyamalan’s 2004 movie The Village, Split
finds the director taking an even darker route
than he did in early hits The Sixth Sense and
Unbreakable. That much is evident from Split’s
set-up, in which McAvoy’s personas (known as
“The Horde”) kidnap and imprison three
teenage girls.

“I’m definitely darker,” he admits to SFX.
“My darker has gotten darker. It’s a little
perverse, and I’m okay with that inappropriate
perverseness. I’m not sure if 10, 15 years ago I
would have written a kid getting smothered
with a diaper, and all that stuff in The Visit, or
the things that go on in Split. But I also feel
okay doing that. Because I feel like in making
smaller movies I’m allowed to push the
boundaries a little bit.”

Shyamalan turned to fresh talent to help him
realise his vision.

“Being able to go, ‘Wow, I saw True Detective
and I love the production design. That’s who
I’m going to hire to do my first movie’ or ‘I
thought the cinematography in It Follows was
amazing. Who is that kid? I’m gonna go meet
him.’ I met [Mike Gioulakis] and he had really
only done It Follows before. He was so quiet,
and I was like, ‘What did you say?’
‘Unbreakable’s my favourite movie.’ I’m like,
‘You’re hired. I’ll send you the script. You’ll
know why’ Then the composer is from The
Jinx, which is the documentary on HBO [about
accused murderer Robert Durst]. He’d never
done a movie. I love those things. I loved True

Detective, 1 loved It Follows, I loved The Jinx.
Those are some of my favourite storytelling
that went on in the last four years. So the fact
that I can join them all together...”

Shyamalan smiles. “I feel like I’m getting a
bargain, because these guys are all newbies and
they’ll kill themselves. The DP, he lived at my
house for a month before we shot, for nothing,
to storyboard everyday with me. I know
Universal bought it and all that stuff, but
because it’s my money... You’re trying harder.

If it’s your pizza shop, you get up earlier. You
come in earlier. You wipe the floors. It’s yours!
It means that much more.”

Audiences will have to wait to see just how
weird Split gets. Like most of Shyamalan’s films
it’s packed with a twist or two that we won’t
reveal here. Let’s just say that Split, perhaps
more than any of his films, blends genres to
hint at a broader universe of possibilities than
first present themselves.

“I’m excited for that. I’m not being honest
about what you’re watching until that scene,
when you learn you are actually watching
something else. It changes genres. You thought
you were watching a kidnapping movie. That
changes, and you’re watching what you think is
a supernatural science movie. Then that
changes and you learn what you actually saw
was... Well, the genre changes at the end.”

As for whether or not Split’s many
possibilities could, unlike Shyamalan’s other
films, result in a sequel...

“Expectations are hard for me,” he admits.
“The more expectations, the more limitations I
have in format and how I’m telling a story. That
becomes uninteresting to me.”

He smiles again. “But I do have a thought
about one last thing in this story...”

Split opens on 20 January.

SPLIT

HEAD

MASTER

James McAvoy on his

challenging role(s)

What led you to sign on for Split?

© I’m not really strategic. I never try
to engineer my career. All I do is
read the script; and if I like it and
feel like it’s going to be a challenge
or it’s going to be exciting or it’s
going to push an audience around
and be a slightly strange experience
for the audience I’ll respond to it. I
like it when something is strange,
and is a little bit challenging for the
audience as well as the actor. This
was definitely a challenge for me...
“Alright, I’m not really playing one
person. I’m playing nine people. So I
just have to do my job nine times.’’

ere you a Shyamalan fan?

© I’m a fan of lots of Night’s work.
Unbreakable came out 15 years ago,
right about the same time the first
X-Men film came out. That film’s sort
of credited with helping to kickstart
the newer wave of what we’re
experiencing now with all these
superhero movies. Yet those two
movies are opposite ends of how
you deal with villains and heroes.
This film is like that as well. [Anya
Taylor-Joy’s] Casey is an absolutely
normal indie movie hero, and Kevin
and the Horde are an entirely sort of
indie depiction of supervillains.

Talking of X-Men: where would you
like to see Charles Xavier go next?

© I seem to remember when I was a
kid reading a comic book of the
X-Men where Charles suffers from
split personality! It wasn’t called DID
back then, but there’s more than one
entity in him. I quite like the idea of
that, so I’d be up for that. I’d be up
for doing lots of different things with
Charles. We just need to wait and
see what the studio and [producer]
Simon Kinberg are planning next.

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MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 85

REX (1)

TbBook

STEPHEN BAXTER

The SF luminary tells us about his new sequel to War Of The Worlds

' Words by Jonathan Wright /// Photography by Joe Branston <

T his year marks 120 years since HG Wells’s The

War Of The Worlds was first serialised in Pearson's
Magazine. As visions of tripods marauding across
south-east England have subsequently embedded
themselves not just in the collective consciousness
of SF fans but the wider world, it’s a story that sits
deep in our shared culture.

All of which means that, even though Wells left plenty of
scope for the story to be continued, it would take a brave
man indeed to write a sequel. Step forward Stephen Baxter,
whose Massacre Of Mankind, authorised by the HG Wells
Estate, imagines what happens when the Red Planet
invaders return in an alternate -history 1920s. ‘Tou have the
Martians landing in the jazz age,” says Baxter, with some
satisfaction. ‘And I’ve got to say there’s a rather ace cover.
Art deco Martians attacking a kind of Empire State
Building, it looks great.”

It does indeed. More importantly, though, it’s a sequel
that captures the spirit of Wells without being cowed by it.
Preparing to write the book, says Baxter, he read a lot of
F Scott Fitzgerald, a way “to move on from the 1897 voice
of Wells, because his style evolved as well”.

FOLLOWING THE GREATS

Baxter, it’s worth noting, has a clearer sense of Wells’s voice
than most. Not only did he previously write The Time Ships
(1995), a sequel to The Time Machine, but he’s a vice-
president of the HG Wells Society. Much as he did when
collaborating with Alastair Reynolds on The Medusa
Chronicles, a continuation of Arthur C Clarke’s novella
A Meeting With Medusa, he went looking for clues via a
close reading of War Of The Worlds.

“Wells repeatedly wrote books about some great
smash-up happening to mankind,” says Baxter, touching on
Wells’s socialist-infused utopianism, “and we all emerge
from the wreckage having suddenly become sane. What
fools we were! Let’s build a world government!’ In The Days
Of The Comet [1906] was one. At the end of The War Of The
Worlds, the narrator is looking for the ‘commonweal of
mankind’ that might emerge from the Martian attack.”

For Baxter, this idea didn’t ring true. “I really didn’t think
that was going to happen,” he says. “The Martian incident,
devastating and conceptually horrifying as it was, was just a
local incident in the south of England. It would be massive
news at the time, but it would soon fade. From Berlin, the
Kaiser would still be nurturing his expansionist ambitions.
And from the States, it’d be like a volcano in Yorkshire. It’d
be a sensation for a while, but like a local natural disaster.”

Accordingly, Massacre Of Mankind outlines a world
history that largely follows the contours of our own
timeline, albeit with significant departures. Working from
the idea the original landings took place in 1907, for
example, Baxter shows World War I as excluding an
understandably otherwise distracted Great Britain, which
doesn’t fight alongside France.

Nevertheless, Baxter certainly shows us war zones. When
the Martians return, first again to England, the topography
is transformed to be far more terrible - and quite literally
alien - than the shell-pocked trench landscape of the
western front.

WAR-TORN LANDS

Or perhaps World War II might be a more apposite
comparison. Researching his alternate history novel
Weaver, which portrays an England occupied by the Nazis,
Baxter again and again came across references to Wells,
references inspired by the way the conflict affected civilians
so profoundly. “I think he must have been a kind of comfort,
at least somebody had imagined all this, it wasn’t just out of
the blue,” says Baxter. “This visionary from the past was able
to foresee it, even if he wasn’t able to offer any solutions.”

Wells himself, though, didn’t necessarily value his ability
to describe such scenes as highly as he might have done. In
Baxter’s estimation, he was both “a very clear- thinking kind
of chap, with a strange, detached perspective” and a man
with a strong visual imagination, even “cinematic” in the
way he would zoom in and zoom out of scenes, or have “one
scene dissolving into another”. When the latter strength
was to the fore, says Baxter, Wells’s writing was better.

“Later in life he became more didactic,” he says. “After
1901, 1902, he wanted to be a finer writer. He put aside his
visual imagination to become more verbal, which was not a
good move really. You don’t deny your strength.”

It’s not a mistake Baxter intends to make as he
approaches his 60th birthday. Instead, he takes inspiration
from Arthur C Clarke, with whom he co-wrote. “He didn’t
have an easy old age with his post-polio syndrome, but I
worked with him when he was in his eighties and he was
still full of ideas, full of enthusiasm, always looking to the
next project, never wanting to rest on his laurels, always
moving forward and always keeping up with the latest
research in space science,” says Baxter. “That’s what I want
to be when I grow up.”

The Massacre Of Mankind is out on 19 January. Read more
from Baxter in SFX's Complete Sci-Fi Handbook, out now.

Biodata^

Occupation

^ Novelist

Born

^ 13 November
1957

From

^ Liverpool
Greatest Hits

^ Baxter’s previous
Wells sequel, The
Time Ships, won
the BSFA Award,
the Sidewise
Award for
Alternate History,
the John W
Campbell Award
and the Philip K
Dick Award.
Random Fact
^ The next two
books in Baxter’s
long-running
Xeelee sequence
{Xeeiee:

Vengeance is due
in June) will finally
reveal aliens that
have previously
been offstage.

STEPHFN BAXTER

THE I >

l/ASSACRE

86 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

/ Follow SFX on Twitter - twitter.com/SFXmagazine

"YOU HAVE
THE MARTIANS
LANDING IN
THE JAZZ AGE”

It is happening again...

Mark Frost tells Will Salmon how his new book
TH^ -ECPET riIST<
explores the past - and the future - of the
iconic mystery show...

88 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

TWIN PEAKS

H H worried. Not about

H H the new season of

Twin Peaks, you understand. He describes
returning to the show he co-created in 1990
with Emperor of Weird David Lynch as ‘‘a
really special experience - we had so much
fun making it and it was so great to reunite
with the old cast and crew, and to revisit some
of the locations.”

No, Mark Frost is worried about Donald
Trump and the path the world appears to be
taking right now. “We seem to live in a world
of competing sets of facts,” he sighs when SFX
catches up with him, a few days after that
fateful election. “There was a moment - I
think it was during the Republican Convention

- when Newt Gingrich was being interviewed
by someone who said. Tactually, what you’re
saying is wrong.’ I can’t quote it literally, but
Gingrich replied. Well, we feel that it’s true’.
There’s very little you can do to prevent people
from having their own set of facts, except to
just say. Took - science!’ But that doesn’t go
down very well, so what are you going to do?”

Frost knows his history - how patterns
recur, and how secret forces impact on the lives
of everyone from FBI agents to the working
class inhabitants of isolated mountain towns

- something that is immediately clear when
reading The Secret History Of Twin Peaks. This
lavish hardback marks the first official return
to the fictional town since 1992’s none-more-
dark movie. Fire Walk With Me. No casually
tossed off tie-in, it’s a book steeped in history,
mystery, politics and folklore, kicking off in
1805 with explorers Lewis and Clark, taking in
World War II, Vietnam, “foo fighters” and
Thelema, and ending roughly where the
original series finished.

The book began to take shape while Frost
and Lynch were deep in the process of writing
the new episodes. “I knew once we started
writing the series in earnest that I’d be doing
the book. We’d had some success with
publishing the first time around [with The
Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer and The
Autobiography Of FBI Special Agent Dale
Cooper] and since then I’ve gotten my
publishing career under way. I was really
looking forward to revisiting the town and the
characters. So once I knew we were going to
make the show I thought it would be a perfect
way to enrich that experience.”

Lynch, for his part, remained hands-off “I
worked on it alone. I was writing it while David
was directing the series - he was a little bit
preoccupied! We wrote the episodes together.

BLACK LAKE

i»\cT fifty yaiU-s aua> Kiir ainl pt>licx
arrftcd whhin mlnuic^ and pn)Oounccd
Mr Packard dead at the scene

Mr. Packard was belioed to be
alone at the time, and no one else at
the scene was Injured Mr Packard Is
surx’ived by his wife, Josie. and his
sister, ijitlierine

Mayor Dwayne .Millord Lvsued this
statement a few hours later from Ciiy
Hall "Our community tocla> is sliaken
to its coir at tlie sudden and senseleNs
death of one of its most outstandinK
citizens Isr known Andrew his
entire life— I wxs once pa>ud to call
myself lus sciHitmasttrr — and I cannot
find the wiirds to dc-scrihe my pro-
found shixk and sense of loss
.yndrew w xs like a younjter brother to
me like the brother I neser had."

TRAGEDY

by CYRIl PONS. SUiff Kepitrler

A BOATING
acxident yesterdas
claimc'd the life of
kKal businevsman
Andrew Packard,
75 Shortly after
9:00 AM an expkv
Sion rcK-ked the
hoatlKHise at the Packard estate. Blue
Pine Uxlge Accortlinn to lamlh sourtrs.
Mr Packaixl had left the house to take
hes customary morninn boat rkle in his
favorite runabout. .Moments later,
apparently when he started the engine,
a blast erupted that was powerful
enougli to destroy the boathouse and

Rate r.iit Reduced

as Pronertv

U s been a king time since a market

and then he went into full prep mode and
directing, and did a phenomenal job on a brutal
schedule. While that was happening I turned
my hand to the book.”

Unusually for a book described on the cover
as simply “a novel”. The Secret History takes
the form of a dossier compiled by a nameless
narrator and an equally elusive FBI agent -
pointedly not Dale Cooper - reviewing the
material. “The function dictated the form,” says
Frost. “It came down to finding a form that
would accommodate the needs of the material.
The show spoke with so many voices and this
format gives everyone the chance to speak.” He
describes the experience of writing so many
different characters over a span of nearly 200
years as, “like spinning plates. With drama
you’re always trying to get into the heads of
different people, but here it was a really
deep dive. But I found it invigorating.

How often do you get a chance to
revisit characters after
this long?”

Also different is the
book’s inclusion of
real-life historical
figures - some of whom
stretch credulity, but are,
in fact, real. Forget
Aleister Crowley and
L Ron Hubbard
(although both play
a part) - what about
Jack Parsons? The
genius rocket
scientist who
helped shape
NASA and was also

a practising occultist sounds like the stuff of
fiction, but was very real. “It’s a cliche, but
truth really is stranger than fiction,” insists
Frost, when we accuse him of tampering with
the history books to come up with such an
unlikely figure. “Our own lives overlap with so
many other people. So why not just throw them
all in the same pot and make a meal out of it?”

MYSTERY & MAGICK

It’s not, however, a 362-page discourse on what
happened to the Log Lady’s husband or how
that fish got in Pete’s percolator. There are
fan-pleasing moments, but predominantly the
book is concerned with mystery, evoking and
sustaining it. Some of the threads are clearly
linked to the supernatural elements that run
through the show (there are allusions to the
Black and White Lodges, the green ring
that shows up throughout FzVe Walk With
Me and, of course, owls not
being what they seem) but
the book is more concerned
with folding Twin Peaks
into the mythology of our
real world.

“Mysteries demanded
harder work from you
then,” says Frost,
admitting that there’s
a degree of nostalgia
for the pre- Google
age that the book
and the original
series takes
place in. “It
always provided me

90 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

TWIN PEAKS

fi(avi97f{ivu^7i^
(Chlnett to no . )

..c/jm “JomU"
"Vfir'tKt At,t,0m Hr^

^rmc.C»!»4 OOlOlllOit

M» Oit

with an incentive to dig deeper. Once I knew
there was something there, it pulled me
forward, as opposed to now. It was like going
spelunking on your own, with a miner’s hat and
a flashlight. Now - it’s almost too easy. And, as
we’ve seen, what it’s given rise to is a universe
where whole sections of our population are
believing an alternate set of facts. I think life was
a little simpler when there was more agreement
on the basic truths of what was around us.

We’re sailing into pretty stormy waters, I think.”

Perhaps the biggest mystery explored in the
book is the UFO phenomenon. Previously only
teased in the TV series, it turns out to have
played a large part in the lives of many of Twin
Peaks’s inhabitants. ‘T guess I would say I’m an
interested observer,” says Frost. “Did you see
the second series of Furgo? It’s based, in part, on
a series of very intense sightings that happened
in Minnesota, about ’76/’77. 1 was making
documentaries for the local PBS station. When
one of them happened close to Minneapolis,

I grabbed a camera crew and went down and
interviewed a bunch of the witnesses. I’ve
never had a direct experience of any of this,
but that was close enough, and it certainly
made me think: where there’s smoke, there’s
Are, and we don’t know what the Are is.”

But fans shouldn’t be
concerned about the book
treading too much on The
X-Files's toes. The Secret
History suggests that its
science Actional and spiritual
elements are, in fact, all part
of the same phenomena. “As
you dig into this stuff, you
realise there’s a long history of

people
experiencing
things akin to UFO
encounters, that
goes back thousands of years. It takes you
a little out of sci-A and almost into pre-
Columbian, shamanistic mythology. I thought
that was pretty fascinating. I’m a big history
buff. And I’ve been around long enough to have
heard a little about a lot of different things. I
cast this net out to And what was going to At
thematically and these were some of the things
that popped up. They reflect back to not only
what we did in the old series, but I think you’ll
And eventually they give you some hints about
where we might be going next... Without
dwelling too long on that, it all blended
together and seemed to be a good At.”

With the show’s return drawing ever-nearer,
and with virtually nothing yet known about
what it will be about or even what form it
might take, fans have been scouring The Secret
History for new information. It must feel like
1990 again, we suggest, when only Frost, Lynch
and a handful of others knew the answers.
“There’s a deAnite recall of that feeling, yeah.
During the height of it, it felt like you had
access to the nuclear codes or
something. It was a little daunting.

It made you wary of talking to
strangers. ‘Maybe this person is
going to really want to know
something more than I can resist
telling them. I just hope it doesn’t
involve pliers and a car battery!”’ •

The Secret History Of Twin Peaks
is out now from Macmillan.

STILL A
MYSTERY

There are two big
questions that The
Secret History pointedly
doesn’t answer...

So, what did happen to Coop
when he returned from the
Black Lodge? And precisely
how is Annie?

* The former question will be
answered, of course, in the TV
show. Kyle MacLachlan was the
first person announced as having
been cast in the new series, and
it’s impossible to imagine Twin
Peaks without Agent Cooper.
Whether he’s good or bad - or
some combination of the two - is
the big question.

But what of Annie Blackburn,
first introduced in season two and
last seen looking seriously worse
for wear after Windom Earle
dragged her to the Black Lodge?
Actress Heather Graham is absent
from the new season’s sprawling
cast list and the character doesn’t
appear in the book. Will we ever
find out what became of her? “All
of the speculation will probably
prove productive - in ways I
obviously can’t talk about,” teases
Frost. “There’s very little that
happens in the book that doesn’t
have a reason. I’ll put it that way.”
Does he get asked, “How’s Annie?”
a lot? “I got a fair amount when
I was on the road with the book.

It’s not the only question people
are interested in, but that’s
definitely one of the catchphrases
associated with the show.”

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 91

ilp

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TU GRIME DRAMA! DUDKS FILM TV

PASSENGERS

^ Jennifer Lawrence
and Chris Pratt find
love defrosted on a
spaceship bound
for a new planet.

^ Highlights ® i

100

CLASS
SERIES ONE

^ Does Patrick
Ness’s YA spin-off
make up for 2016’s
lack of Doctor Who?

108

THE MASSACRE
OF MANKIND

^ The Martians are
back in Stephen
Baxter’s War Of The
Worlds sequel.

^RATINGS EXPLAINED ★★★★★SUPERB ★★★★ GOOD ★★★ AVERAGE ★★ POOR ★ TERRIBLE

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 93

Bevkws

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ROGUE ONE

A Matter Of Life And Death Star

'k'k'k'ki

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

12A 1 134 minutes

► Director Gareth Edwards

► Cast Felieity Jones, Diego Luna,

Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen,

Alan Tudyk, Forest Whitaker

easy bit. If Disney is really going to
make the most of its $4 billion-
plus investment in Star Wars, it
needs to make blockbuster movies
away from the safety blanket of
Han, Leia, Luke and the old
Sk 3 rwalker family drama. So Rogue
One - a “how we stole the plans to
the Death Star” war movie focused
on an entirely new group of
characters - could well be the
most important movie the
post- George Lucasfilm ever makes.

But if there was ever a question
whether a Star Wars movie could
work away from the main saga,
Rogue One answers it
emphatically. It’s an exhilarating
companion piece to the original
trilogy, simultaneously reverent to
the source material while feeling
like no Star Wars movie that’s
come before it - the sort of story
usually told in an expanded
universe novel, given the full

blockbuster treatment. It’s bold,
dark, moving, spectacular and
sometimes very funny - and it’s as
radical as The Force Awakens was
comfortingly familiar.

As soon as the famous “A long
time ago in a galaxy far, far
away...” fades, it’s clear we’re in
for a new kind of adventure and
excitement. There’s no fanfare, no
opening crawl, in their place a
beautiful shot of an Imperial
shuttle flying through a planet’s
ring system, and a prologue
sequence about the Ersos - a
family who are to the Death Star
as the Sk 5 rwalkers are to the
Empire. For the first time ever we
get captions on screen to tell us
(most of) the locations we’re
visiting. And director Gareth
Edwards by and large keeps his
camera mobile, handheld, at eye
level to catch the full impact of
the many explosions - quite a
departure from the epic sweeps
of the Episodes.

It’s still unmistakably Star Wars,
however. The sights, sounds and
even the music - new composer
Michael Giacchino brings
something new to the table while
still being faithful to John
Williams - are all reassuringly

familiar. The buttons on the Death
Star’s control panels have the
tactile retro clunk of the originals,
the Rebels keep their ’70s
moustaches, and for hardcore fans,
there are plenty of nods and
in-jokes to what’s come before.
Luckily few come at the expense
of the story.

Of course, where Rogue One is
heading has been set in stone since
the original movie told us that
Rebel spies had stolen secret
Death Star plans, but that’s never a
problem - the journey is much
more important than the
destination. While there are some
slight pacing issues in the first half

44 It’s a
triumph for
both the
Rebels and
Lucasfilm

as the ragtag team of Rebels
coalesces, everything explodes
into life in a final act as brilliant as
anything in the history of Star
Wars - the closer you get to the
beginning of A New Hope, the
more captivating it gets. It’s like

94 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

everything you ever dreamed
could be in an original trilogy
action sequence and more, with
old-school Empire and Rebel
Alliance hardware realised by 21st
century ILM. Like JJ Abrams,
Edwards gets Star Wars and
packs the movie with beautiful
visuals that will make any fan want
to punch the air in delight. There
are few things in life more
satisfying than watching a
squadron of classic X-Wings
swooping into battle.

But Rogue One is also the movie
that puts the Wars in Star Wars
- Saving Private Ryan seems
nearly as much of an influence as

A New Hope. It’s the story of
ordinary people forced to do
questionable things for the greater
good - they don’t have any
sorcerer’s ways to fall back on,
so for the first time we see the
actual human (and alien) cost of
the Rebels’ fight against the
Empire; the grunts who’d usually
be out of focus in the background
finally given faces. Because the
central characters are unknown
(though mostly memorable, with
snarky droid K-2SO the standout),
it gives their predicament an
urgency we’ve not seen before. It’s
no spoiler to say that not all of
them make it out alive, and

remarkably. Rogue One packs a
similar emotional punch
to Han Solo taking a lightsaber to
the guts. (The movie’s one star
“face”, Darth Vader, is used
sparingly, but brilliantly.)

So Rogue One is a triumph for
both the Rebels and Lucasfilm. We
can’t wait to see where Episode
VIII will go, but ironically a movie
that delves right back into Star
Wars history while reinventing
what the franchise can be might
just hold the key to its long-term
future... Richard Edwards

• George Lucas had some simple advice

I for Gareth Edwards when he visited the
Rogue One set: “Don’t screw it up.”

EASTER

Bits of lore you may
have missed

Dr Evazan cameos to
tell Jyn, “You just watch
yourself,” pre-empting
what he says to Luke
Skywalker in the Mos
Eisley Cantina. (He must
have got off Jedha
pretty sharpish to avoid
the Death Star blast...)

The Kyber crystals used
to power the Death Star
also fuel lightsabers.

The Whills, of which
Chirrut and Baze are
guardians on Jedha,
were referenced as far
back as George Lucas’s
early treatments for the
original movie.

We’d be surprised if the
lava planet where
Krennic meets Vader
isn’t Mustafar, site of
Anakin’s duel with Obi-
Wan. In the expanded
universe, both Vader
and the Emperor use
the planet for Dark Side
meditation - and the
interrogation of Jedi.

Red Leader (Garven
Dreis) and Gold Leader
(Jon Vander) are
digitally recreated from
A New Hope. The
doomed pre-Luke Red
Five also appears.

A ship that looks like
Star Wars Rebels’ Ghost
is in the final battle.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 95

Bevkws

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfx

PASSENGERS

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

12A 1 116 minutes

► Director Morten Tyldum

► Cast Jennifer Lawrenee, Chris Pratt,
Miehael Sheen, Laurenee Fishhurne

for Passengers was named one of
Hollywood’s Hottest Unproduced
Screenplays. It bounced around in
development hell for years; for a
while it seemed as though Keanu
Reeves was going to produce it as
a relatively low-budget drama (he
was set to star opposite Emily
Blunt), but it didn’t pan out.
Eventually The Imitation Game
director Morten Tyldum bit the
bullet, took the risk and brought
us this version: a mega-budget
sci-fi action extravaganza that’s
also, somewhat paradoxically,
a charming romance starring
Jennifer Lawrence and Chris
Pratt, two of the hottest names in
Hollywood today.

We say “paradoxically” because,
as a morality tale for future
generations. Passengers could
have just as easily have been a
devastatingly powerful Twilight
Zone story or (with a few tweaks)

a brutally cynical episode of Black
Mirror. Pratt’s humble colonist
Jim wakes up from stasis after a
120-year journey to another
planet to establish a new home,
only to discover that it’s only
been 30 years, he still has 90 to
go, and there’s no way to go
back to sleep again. Sure, he can
wander the corridors of the
spaceship and enjoy its ultra-
swish perks: the place has
everything from the best
swimming pool in space that you
will ever see, to a bar with an
android barman (Michael Sheen)
who’s nice enough, but no
substitute for a real human. Or, he
can slowly go mad from loneliness
and find himself staring at his
sleeping fellow passengers,
wondering whether to wake them

up just so he doesn’t spend the rest
of his natural life alone.

No prizes for guessing what Jim
does once he sees Lawrence’s
author, Aurora, snoozing away in
her pod. And this is where
Passengers comes into its own:
the moral ambiguities and
repercussions of this act are
sickening, and while the two do
fall in love (this is a Hollywood
movie, after all), there are plenty
of shoes waiting to drop.

The performances are realistic
and compelling, while the effects
work and production design are
flawless on all counts (again, can
we stress that this film has the best
swimming pool in space you will
ever see?). Passengers ramps up
the action in a gigantic third-act
setpiece which is satisfyingly
tense, but frankly, underneath all
the CGI this is nothing more than
a conventional love story with a
dark twist. If this had actually
been an episode of Black Mirror, it
would probably have been every
inch as effective - not to mention
considerably cheaper. Still, you
can’t fault the visuals here - or its
big-name stars - and you’ll
definitely find yourself wondering
what you’d do in Jim’s Robinson
Crusoe-esque situation. You might
not like the answer... Jayne Nelson

• The voice of the starship Avalon is Emma

1 Clarke, who also provides the “Mind the
gap” announcements on the Tube.

ALS0*0UT

26 DECEMBER
MONSTER TRUCKS

A tentacular creature acts
as the engine for a high
school kid’s truck in this
CGI/live-action blend.

1 JANUARY
ASSASSIN’S CREED

Michael Fassbender and
Marion Cotillard star in this
adaptation of the smash
hit Ubisoft videogames,
about a crack assassin in
15th century Spain.

13 JANUARY
THE BYE BYE MAN

College students take on a
supernatural entity that
causes killing sprees by
possessing people in this
horror thriller.

UNDERWORLD: BLOOD
WARS The sequel to
2012’s Underworld:
Awakening sees Kate
Beckinsale’s Selene trying
to end the war between
Lycans and Vampires.
Sherlock’s Lara Pulver
plays the villain.

25 JANUARY
GHOST IN THE SHELL

Ahead of the Scarlett
Johansson-starring
remake, the classic 1995
anime film gets a
one-night-only reissue -
head to http://gitsmovie.
co.uk to find the nearest
screening to you.

27 JANUARY
THE WHITE KING

A boy vows to find his
imprisoned father in this
near-future dystopia
(reviewed on pl03) - it has
a limited theatrical release
ahead of its DVD debut.

96 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Beviem

SPLIT

Multiple McAvoy

'k'k'k'k

► RELEASED 20 JANUARY
15 1 117 minutes

► Director M Night Shyamalan

► Cast James MeAvoy, Betty Buekley,
Anya Taylor-Joy

categories of film that jaded
filmgoers have sworn never to
try again, “movies hy M Night
Shyamalan” ranks high
nowadays, as do “psycho
thrillers in which the psycho
has a split personality”. Split is
both, but here’s the real shock
twist: it’s good (and in ways that
SFX readers will appreciate...).

On paper, the starting point is
as generic as it gets. Three high
school girls are abducted by
Kevin (a shaven-headed James
McAvoy). They wake in a
windowless room, and soon
realise their captor is effectively
several different people,
ranging from a domineering
matriarch to a nine-year- old
boy. But it’s not just a captivity
story. A B-plot in the outside
world involves the man’s
therapist (Betty Buckley), who
knows the dark corners of her
patient’s multi-faceted
personality. Unfortunately, even
she doesn’t know all of them...

Early on, it’s easy to be
sceptical of both the story -
how on earth can it do anything
new with such well-trodden
turf? - and of McAvoy’s
much-hyped performance,
which initially seems like a set
of sketch show turns. And yet
over the film’s duration both
the story and the performance
gel, with enough complexity to
reward repeat viewings.

Buckley plays a convincingly
good professional and person,
while Anya Taylor-Joy intrigues
as one of McAvoy’s captives
who finds strange ways to
connect to him. The shifts from
menace to farce are jarring but
justifiable, and menace prevails.
There’s a show-stopper
goofy-scary dance scene, but
also some very unHollywood
harshness. The nastiness is
non- exploitative but upsetting
(there’s child abuse). The film is
indulgently long at nearly two
hours, but the ending is one of
the director’s two or three best.
For the first time in a long
while, it makes us look forward
to whatever Shyamalan does
next. Andrew Osmond

• During the shoot, a frustrated McAvoy

1 punched a door, thinking it was fake.
But it was metal, and he broke his hand.

iFILH

ruisiMs

\ILST-SEK

From iconic thrillers to sci-fi
masterpieces - the essential selection
every film fan should watch

Your essential,

guide
to the best films
ever made

Feviews

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BLAIR WITCH

Can’t see The Woods for the trees

'k'k'ki EXTRAS 'k'k'k'k

► RELEASED 16 JANUARY
(download)

23 JANUARY (Blu-ray/DVD)

2016 15 Blu-ray/DVD/download

► Director Adam Wingard

► Cast James Allen McCune, Callie
Hernandez, Corbin Reid

Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel
Myrick’s The Blair Witch Project
exploded onto screens. A massive,
unexpected critical and financial
success, it became a milestone in
horror filmmaking, and one of the
first examples of viral marketing.

In 2016, a sequel came out of
nowhere after Lionsgate revealed,
via a San Diego Comic- Con
screening, that slated horror The
Woods was a stealth follow-up.
Then it hit cinemas, made hardly
any money, and all talk of an
expanded universe went quiet. So
what went wrong? And can the
home ent release help the movie
find its way out of the woods?

Decades after the events of the
original, documentarian Heather
Donahue’s little brother James is
now fully grown and obsessed
with the mystery of what
happened to his sister. When a
video discovered in the woods
where Heather and her crew
vanished shows footage of a house
and a figure that could be Heather
herself, James resolves to head

back to the scene with his friends.
Tooled up with kit - drones,
multiple cameras and GPS - the
kids meet locals Lane and Talia,
Blair Witch legend nerds who
insist on accompanying the group.

Structurally it’s faithful to the
original, with the gang getting lost,
falling out and being terrorised by
noises in the night with escalating
intensity, leading to a finale which
is breathless, shocking and intense.
It’s tightly paced, the addition of
new tech is smart (if underused)
and the characters, while generic
and forgettable, at least don’t make
stupid decisions that leave you
wishing for their demise. Blair
Witch is modern, inventive and
frequently very scary. Trouble is
it’s both too slavish to the original
and not slavish enough, structured
almost like a remake but swapping
TBWP’s maddening ambiguity for
supernatural shocks. No spoilers,
but Blair Witch throws in some
timey-wimey business, some body
horror and an actual monster.

The film grossed just $21
million at the US box office. For
context: 2010’s A Nightmare On
Elm Street made $63 million.
Hopefully B/uzr Witch will find its
true home on disc, with obsessive
fans who can pick through writer
Simon Barrett and director Adam
Wingard’s carefully constructed
mythology in their own time.
Because despite the lukewarm

“This reminds me. I
forgot to set my box
for Gardeners’ Worlds

critical response, this is a good
horror film. It’s the only Blair
Witch film which could
realistically have been made in
2016. We’re all far too cynical to
believe claims that a story is real
these days, and audiences are
suffering from found-footage
fatigue. The barrage of sequels,
remakes, reboots, spin-offs and
expanded franchises has left
horror fans thirsty for something
else, something more - scares we
haven’t seen before. Wingard
couldn’t end his movie on a beat
that reveals almost nothing
concrete about what we’ve been

44 Modern,
inventive and
frequently
very scary

watching, any more than he could
sustain tension by simply showing
increasingly stressed-out people
getting lost in a forest. In a world
where ‘‘based on true events”
means a ghostly nun- demon
haunting in a north London
council fiat (The Conjuring 2) this

98 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

might not be the Blair Witch movie
we wanted, but it’s probably the
one we deserve.

O Extras “We made everyone’s
second-least favourite Blair Witch
movie!” Recorded two weeks after
the film’s disappointing open
weekend, Barrett and Wingard’s
commentary is painfully self-
deprecating; after about the fifth
joke about how everyone hated it
you start to feel really sorry for
them. Though a little overly
technical at times, it’s a decent
listen. The two emphatically
confirm that the creature we see at
the end was not intended to be the

Blair Witch; apparently cut
material where the legends
surrounding the Witch are
debated might have made that
clearer (though this was “not
worked up enough” to be included
as deleted scenes). Despite
acknowledging that there’ll never
be a sequel, the two refuse to
explain exactly what was going on,
though. Over six parts, feature-
length doc Neverending Night (107
minutes) obviously has some
overlap with the commentary, but
provides more detailed insights
into areas like editing, sound
design and the Comic- Con

screening. Highlights include
behind-the-scenes footage of the
head-mounted cameras, the tunnel
sequence and the gore effects.
Incidentally, if you did assume that
That Thing was the Blair Witch,
this doc will reassure you that
you’re not dumb, as both the editor
and sound designer call it that
too! Finally, Wingard and the
production designer take us on a
tour of the impressive sets for the
Rustin Parr house in a 16 -minute
featurette. Penny Archer/Ian Berriman

• Unlike the original movie, the whole of

1 Blair Witch was scripted. Adam Wingard
used air horns to scare the cast.

THE WHICH

BLAIR

PROJECT^

Pit your Blair wits
against our quiz!

QUESTION 1

She played potty-
mouthed, pea soup-
vomiting possessee
Regan in The Exorcist.
But what’s her name,
huh? Clue: the correct
surname is Blair.

QUESTION 2

In the Hellboy films,
who played Big Red’s
love interest Liz
Sherman? Yes, it’s
another Blair.

QUESTION 3

George Orwell was a
pen name. What was
the Nineteen Eighty-
Four author’s real
name? Are you getting
the hang of this yet?

QUESTION 4

Name the controversial
2000 AD comic in
which Tony Blair had a
computer intelligence
called Doctor Spin
implanted in his brain.
Clue: aim for
something Blair-y.

QUESTION 5

What was the no-
nonsense pilot played
by Moon Bloodgood in
Terminator: Sa Nation
called? Stumped?

Don’t worry -
absolutely no one
remembers this,
including Moon
Bloodgood.

sojeiiiiM jjeia g l aivna mQ

jnqijv £ Jl^ia eojieg Z -iieia epun l

saaMSNV

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 99

Yes, we just wanted to do this so we could use the headline.

Feviews

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfx

DRINKING

GAME!

Knock back a
beverage of your
choice every time...

® Charlie fails to
get a joke, or
understand
something basic about
human culture.

@ A character bursts
into tears - or
looks like they’re on
the brink of doing so.

@ April’s eyes glow
red as she makes a
connection with the
Shadow Kin leader.

@ Someone mentions
UNIT, or Zygons,
or the Doctor.

® Charlie and Miss
Quill argue again
about whether his
control over her
makes her a prisoner
or a slave.

@ Someone wails, “I
love you!”

CLASS

Series One

School of hard knocks

EXTRAS irir

► RELEASED 16 JANUARY
2016 15 DVD
Creator Patrick Ness
Cast Greg Austin, Fady Elsayed,

Sophie Hopkins, Vivian Oparah

school (Coal Hill, a key location in
the first Doctor Who story), you
might have thought this teen-
targeted Who spin-off would share
DNA with CBBC’s The Sarah Jane
Adventures. Instead, it out-
Torchwoods Torchwood.

The format sees threats
emerging through cracks in space/
time, much as they did in Captain
Jack’s manor - though another
trouble-magnet is alien prince/
pupil Charlie and alien warrior/
teacher Miss Quill, both delivered

to Earth by the Doctor to save
them from genocidal Shadow-
monsters. Then there’s the (not
explicit, but recurrent) sexual
content - well, what did you
expect from a show populated by
horny teenagers? Oh, and the
amped-up violence: Class gleefully
splashes bucketloads of blood
about the Whoniverse, often while
delivering jokingly abrupt deaths
for recurring characters.

The series also shares
Torchwood’s, ahem, unfettered
approach to story concepts, with
hit-and-miss results. Episode
seven’s use of a “metaphysical
engine” which transports people
to places which only exist
conceptually is a delight. But then
we also get a killer tattoo and an
invasion by carnivorous flowers.

The latter is a fair stab at aping
Who’s tactic of making the
everyday extraordinary, but there’s
something inescapably bathetic
about bloodied extras stumbling
about in piles of pink petals.

The final similarity: the
emotional tone. Remember lanto
blubbing over his dead Cyber-
converted girlfriend? Imagine a
whole series pitched at that level.
Though perhaps another TV series
is a better comparison: The X
Factor - specifically, the way it’s de
rigueur for contestants to have
some tragic backstory which Made
Them The Person They Are Today
(and to constantly harp on about
it). Class is awash with these, with
folky violinist April lumbered with
enough trauma for two, poor love:
the estranged dad who attempted

suicide and the paralysed mum.
What’s more, the series continues
to pile on the character-building
catastrophe as it proceeds.

The cast is uniformly excellent,
and the series is to be commended
for taking the lives of its teenage
characters seriously. Still, for any
viewers not currently surfing a
hormonal maelstrom, the
histrionics can get a bit wearyingly
emo. You may And yourself
fervently wishing for just one Coal
Hill pupil whose biggest problem
is homework. Or, at the very least,
for characters who don’t loudly
define themselves before we’ve
had a chance to see their actions
do so. The fact that the most
successful episode barely features
the kids at all, focusing instead on
Miss Quill (a bracingly astringent
Katherine Kelly) speaks volumes.
End of year report: maybe don’t
try quite so hard, actually.

O Extras A 15-minute behind-the-
scenes piece. Calvin Baxter

• In episode one, the old lady in the

1 minimart is June Hudson, who redesigned
Tom Baker’s costume for his final year.

100 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

DO DRAGONS

ACTUALLY EXIST?

IS IT possm TO CRUSH

WATCH THE
MINISERIES ON
YOUTUBE:

www.hodderscape.oo.uk

/SoienoeofThrones

A MYTH-BUSTING,
MIND-BLOWING. AND FUN-FILLED
EXPEDITION THROUGH THE WORLD OF
6AME OF THRONES

Bevkws

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfx

COLONY

Season One

Is resistance futile?

EXTRAS ★★

► RELEASED 16 JANUARY

2016 12 DVD

► Creators Carlton Cuse, Ryan J Condal

► Cast Josh Holloway, Sarah Wajme
Callies, Peter Jacohson, Tory Kittles

alien invasion show ever made, for
one very simple reason: there are
no aliens. Well, practically...

Set a year after their arrival, it’s
located in a near-future Los
Angeles surrounded by 30-foot-
high walls, administered on their
behalf by a human Transitional
Authority. Caught trying to escape
the Bloc to search for his missing
son, former FBI agent Will Bowman
(Losfs Josh Holloway And His
Lovely Hair) is blackmailed into
using his skills to hunt down
members of the resistance.

Nine of these 10 episodes pass
without so much as a glimpse of
the alien “Raps”, or even an
explanation of their nickname -
the nearest we get to them are
the deadly drones which buzz
around the city. Initially, this
seems like lunacy. Then you realise
that it’s actually quite a smart,
original move. Sidelining the
invaders leaves space to explore
the ethical issues of living under
occupation. Do you collaborate,
like Will? Or do you resist - like
(unbeknownst to him) Will’s wife,
Katie (The Walking Dead’s Sarah
Wayne Callies)?

The high- concept makes for a
different kind of protagonist.
Bowman collaborates reluctantly,
and for the best of reasons - if he
doesn’t, his family will suffer,
while if he does, he may be

reunited with his son - but he still
collaborates. Yet you can still
empathise. This is a world with
practically no clear-cut goodies or
baddies - just people struggling to
survive, and engaging in all kinds
of morally grey behaviour to do so.
And the arguments made against
the resistance can be persuasive

- are they deluded idealists, only
causing more suffering?

Colony can be frustrating.

Hell, we’re science fiction fans

- we want to see spaceships and
aliens! Plus from time to time it
descends into sub -24 corn: much
of the plotting relies on Will
blabbing to his missus about his
top-secret work; sensitive
conversations forever seem to be
taking place surrounded by
possible earwiggers; Katie seems
to think you become invisible if
you put a baseball cap on; and

44 A slightly
cheesy
espionage
thriller

the ease with which she becomes
a ruthless killer rather defies
belief All the same, it deserves
praise for trying something a little
bit different.

Like Kenneth Johnson’s original
V, Colony is attempting to mix a
little intellectual stimulation in
with its populist entertainment.

It’s essentially a slightly cheesy
espionage thriller, with all the
double-crosses, gun battles and
explosions that entails, but it’s one
that will also make you think
about how difficult it is to stand
up against a totalitarian regime,
and whether you would really
have the moral purity or the
courage to do so.

O Extras Seven deleted scenes
(seven minutes) and a preview
piece that aired before the series
(22 minutes), lan Berriman

• The bar Katie runs, the Yoknapatawpha,

I is named after the fictional county where
William Faulkner set most of his novels.

Commuting on Southern Rail does this.

FRIGHT NIGHT

Roddy marvellous

'k'k'ki EXTRAS ■k-k-k'ki

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

1985 18 Blu-ray&DVD
(dual format)

Director Tom Holland
Cast William Ragsdale, Chris
Sarandon, Roddy McDowall

m!B3SM333Si The most

compelling character in this
classic ’80s vampire romp is
Peter Vincent (Roddy
McDowall). As a late-night TV
horror host, he’s aged out of
relevance, so when awkward
teen Charley (William
Ragsdale) begs him to confront
his bloodsucking neighbour,
he’s so fiattered he almost
agrees. Then Charley’s friends
offer to pay him, and he’s so
hard-up he doesn’t have any
choice but to agree.

He seems particularly
poignant now, in this new 4k
restoration, because we’re now
further away from Fright
Night’s original release than it
was from Hammer Horror’s
heyday. Both Vincent and the
film are throwbacks twice over.
But teenagers will always be
awkward, vampires will always
be cool, and the gooey special
effects hold up surprisingly
well in unforgiving high-def
O Extras Bucketloads,
including a new 147-minute
documentary, a 28-minute
interview with writer/director
Tom Holland about his career,
54 minutes of shaky footage of
the cast on a panel at Fear Fest
2008, trailers, galleries and lots
more. The steelbook edition on
sale now comes with a booklet;
the regular edition due in April
won’t. Sarah Dobbs

Star William Ragsdale broke his foot

1 after tripping down a staircase, and
shot many scenes wearing a cast.

102 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

Blackpool Pleasure
Beach has really

THE PURGE:
ELECTION YEAR

The ballot and the bullets

'k'k'ki EXTRAS ★★

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

2016 15 Blu-ray/DVD/download

► Director James DeMonaco

Cast Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitehell,
Mykeiti Williamson

centre, watching a dystopian film
centred on a US election probably
doesn’t hold much appeal right now.
And when discussing its female
candidate and how “all she needs
is Florida”, this third entry in the
Purge saga really twists the knife...
But try not to let that put you off
Anti-Purge candidate Charlie
Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) is
stranded on the streets after those
behind the annual slaughter-fest
try to take her out. The Purge:

Anarchy’s Frank Grillo is the
security guy trying to keep her alive.

Election Year is more expansive
and action-packed than previous
instalments, but it continues the
trend of increasing politicisation
- and the largely African-
American cast can’t help but feel
like a nod to Black Lives Matter.

Its messaging isn’t subtle, and by
treating psychopathy like cosplay
it often resembles a Marilyn
Manson video. But it’s rare that
part three of a franchise is as
strong as the first - and wraps
things up in satisfying fashion.

O Extras Seven deleted/extended
scenes; two featurettes. lan Berriman

• Ted Cruz’s Presidential candidacy informed

1 James DeMonaco’s rewrites: “The Minister
has a definite Ted-like quality”.

THE WHITE KING

★ ★

EXTRAS ★★

► RELEASED 30 JANUARY
2016 12 DVD

dystopian drama imagines a
run-down totalitarian state
whose citizens live in rural
austerity (it feels like a very
small world, despite the giant
statues dotted around). A young
boy and his mother (Agyness
Deyn) try to cope after the boy’s
father is arrested for treason.

Despite the intended pathos,
the feeling is more of tedium;
the vague story just doesn’t go
an5rwhere, despite good turns
from Jonathan Pryce and Fiona
Shaw as the boy’s grandparents.
O Extras Two featurettes.

Andrew Osmond

His TMNT costume creeped out the kids.

WORM

★ ★

EXTRAS ★★

► RELEASED 16 JANUARY
2014 15 DVD

the heart of Worm: in a future
where mankind has lost the
ability to dream, people turn to
genetically- engineered
parasites with the power to
generate vivid fantasies.

But despite its stabs at
verisimilitude - mock
commercials, news reports
- the film never sells its world,
crippled by a meandering,
improvised script and a giddying
tonal lurch from whimsy to
something nastier in the final act.
© Extras Commentary;
deleted scenes; short film;
trailers. Nick Setchfield

Hide and seek could go on for hours...

RUPTURE

EXTRAS

► RELEASED 9 JANUARY
2016 15 Blu-ray/DVD

horror starts well enough.
Noomi Rapace plays a single
mother to an unhappy boy
who, after being spied on, is
abducted by a mysterious
organisation and taken to a
subterranean facility to be
interrogated. Why? Who by?
And in the end, who cares?

Rapace’s plunge into a
dimly-lit netherworld soon
feels dismal and tiresome; it
then goes a bit Saw, followed by
doses of obvious CGI. The odd
idea intrigues but overall this is
no fun for anyone.

> »

£< f ’

It’s Morphin’ Time!

THE GUYVER

EXTRAS ir-k

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

1991 12 Blu-ray& DVD (dual format)

anime/manga, this Z-grade ’90s
dreck sees a youth finding alien
armour and fighting mutants.

The alien suits are good, and
there are a few decent effects
towards the end, but the script
and characters are Troma-level
braindead. Still, if you can
endure the protracted Power
Rangers-style brawls, then you
might enjoy the awfulness
- especially with a moustached
Mark Hamill in a prominent
“goodie” support role.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 103

Feviews

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SADAKOVS

KAYAKO

Cursed film

► RELEASED JANUARY
2016 SVOD
Director Koji Shiraishi
Cast Rina Endo, Elly Nanami,
Mizuki Yamamoto, Tina Tamashiro

Ring Vs Grudge

started life as a joke, an April
Fool’s Day trailer designed to
give fans a chuckle. Evil knows
they needed a laugh, with the
most recent Ringu/Ju-On
instalments (Sadako 3D 2, and
Ju-On: The Final Curse) both
being franchise nadirs. The
reaction was so positive a real
version was rushed into
production, in an apparent
attempt to prove the saying
“things can always get worse”.

Sadako Vs Kayako ostensibly
takes the framework of a Ring
movie (a cursed videotape
causes a long-haired ghost-face
killer to crawl out of your telly)
and adds Grudge characters
(frog-throated spooks really
hate house-guests) to the story.
Our idiotic heroes are studying
the Ring curse and decide to
watch the tape an5rway, then
hang out in the Grudge house in
the hope that the ghosts will
fight over the right to kill them.

If this sounds like a simpler
version of Freddy Vs Jason, well,
that’s because it is. As in that
film, Sadako Vs Kayako’s
constant humour drains any
tension from the narrative.

SvK’s been picked up by
“Netflix for horror fans”
Shudder, but we’d rather stream
Sadako’s VHS than suffer it
again. Sam Ashurst

• This is the twelfth entry for both

1 franchises, despite the fact that they
were previously unconnected.

^UMAN8 Series Two

Rise Of The Machines

EXTRAS ★★

► RELEASED 16 JANUARY
2016 15 DVD

E> Creators Sam Vincent,

Jonathan Brackley

i Cast Emily Berrington, Gemma Chan,
Colin Morgan, Katherine Parkinson

Matrix’s Carrie-Anne Moss to fill
the “Hollywood name” hole
vacated by William Hurt, the
second series of Channel 4’s hit AI
drama couldn’t be more British if
it tried. Covering similar territory
to the mega-budget Westworld,
Humans’ low-key, suburban
approach to androids dealing with
their new-found consciousness
makes for an intriguing
counterpoint. The show’s most
obvious special effect may be
giving its “synth” stars green
contact lenses, but that doesn’t
mean it’s any less compelling than
its grander American cousin.

While series one was neatly
self-contained, this second outing
massively expands the show’s
focus as it explores the
consequences of a world filled
with human-like robots: more
synths gain consciousness, tech
firms strive to create their own

self-aware machines, and we meet
humans who live pretending to be
synthetic. It’s loaded with ideas,
yet the show never loses sight of
the fact that the tech itself is not as
important as the way it impacts
upon its characters, whether
they’re organic or synthetic - few
shows service a large cast so
even-handedly, though it’s
arguably the synths (particularly
Emily Berrington’s rebellious
Niska) who really stand out.

Admittedly there’s little original
about the story arc, with plot
elements lifted from the usual
suspects like ExJMachina, Blade
Runner and The Terminator, and
even Star Trek: The Next
Generation episode “The Measure
Of A Man”. But despite the
familiarity, it’s packaged in such a
plausible way that that you totally
buy into a world where synths are
as ubiquitous as smartphones. A
worthy continuation of the UK’s
sci-fi tradition.

O Extras Just two short
featurettes: a Making Of and a
closer look at Niska’s escape.
Richard Edwards

• Emily Berrington (Niska) once worked as a

1 case-worker for a Labour MR and spoke at
the 2015 Labour Party conference.

■<v.- •

UKIP’s Christmas party was going well. |

WITCHING &
BITCHING

Evil Espana

» RELEASED OUT NOW!
2013 SVOD

Director Alex de la Iglesia
Cast Hugo Silva, Carolina Bang,
Carmen Maura, Jaime Ordonez

If The Witch’s Black

Phillip had tried to lure
Witching St Bitchin^s
spellcasters out into the woods,
they’d’ve lopped off his horns
and eaten him for dinner. Alex
de la Iglesia’s latest Spanish-
language horror- comedy sees a
gang of pawn shop robbers run
into a demented coven on the
eve of a sacred ritual, and all
kinds of witchy mayhem ensues.

De la Iglesia isn’t a director
known for his restraint, and he
definitely doesn’t hold back
here. From the opening robbery
(in which a man dressed as an
off-brand Spongebob is
graphically gunned down) to
the eye-popping finale (where
a giant deity fights flying
witches), there’s barely a frame
of this movie that doesn’t have
something incredible in it.

It does get a little exhausting
towards the end, especially
because there’s not quite
enough story to support the
film’s 112 -minute runtime. And
its gender politics occasionally
seem a bit suspect - especially
because it’s impossible to know
who, if anyone, you’re meant to
be rooting for. But it’s hard to
think of another film with quite
as much riotous energy. You’ll
certainly never look at a
broomstick the same way
again. Sarah Dobbs

• Two more Spanish horrors are now

1 streaming via Shudder: Shrew’s Nest
and The Corpse Of Anna Fritz.

104 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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KUBOANDTHE
TWO, STRINGS

Poetry in stopmotion

EXTRAS ★★★

► RELEASED 16 JANUARY
2016 PG 3D Blu-ray/Blu-ray/DVD

► Director Travis Knight

► Cast Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron,
Matthew McConaughey, Rooney Mara

studio Laika takes its state-of-the-
art version of stopmotion to
ancient Japan in one of the best
genre movies of 2016. The visuals
are as slick as anything Pixar can
do, but the tactile quality of the
puppets gives the film an extra
element of magic. In fact, the
animation is so impressive that
you spend half the film trying to
work out how they did it - it would
be distracting if the story wasn’t so
captivating in its own right.

As young Kubo embarks on a
quest to recover a sacred suit of
armour, his adventure is brimming
with heart, taps into some
sophisticated themes and
mythology, and boasts wonderful
supporting players. Kubo flopped
at the cinema, but hopefully word
of mouth can now turn it into a hit.
O Extras The DVD gets about half
an hour of making- of featurettes.
They’re brief, but it’s a real
eye-opener looking behind-the-
scenes at innovations like an
18-foot stopmotion skeleton
puppet. The Blu-ray adds
director’s commentary and a brief
promo featurette. Richard Edwards

• Kubo director and Laika CEO Travis Knight

I is the son of Phil Knight, founder and
chairman of Nike.

DONNIE DARKO

Bunny peculiar

★★★★★ EXTRAS

► RELEASED OUT NOW! (limited

edition)/9 JANUARY

2001 15 Blu-ray & DVD (dual format)/
Blu-ray/DVD

► Director Richard Kelly

► Cast Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie
Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore

Kelly’s coming of age/time travel
head-fuck-athon feels as relevant
as when it first befuddled
audiences. Its on-trend ’80s
nostalgia, implied superheroics
and pop -heavy soundtrack are all
right at home in 2017.

Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a
troubled teen who, after dodging a
falling jet engine, finds himself
haunted by an ominous figure in a
bunny suit who promises that the
world will end in 28 days if he
doesn’t do... something. But while
the film’s plot is cloaked in

mystery, it’s far more concerned
with the lives of its characters. It’s
also a masterpiece - a modern
indie classic that’s finally getting
the home release it deserves, with
a scrubbed up 4K restoration on
both versions of the film.

Both versions? Yes, there’s a
director’s cut too (well, unless you
buy the DVD...). It’s 20 minutes
longer, but the changes to the
sound and visual effects come at
the cost of atmosphere and
ambiguity. You get a better sense
of what Kelly thinks it’s about...
but where’s the fun in that? Worst
of all, several of the songs have
been changed. Frankly, a Donnie
Darko that starts with INXS rather
than Echo And The Bunnymen is
not a Donnie Darko worth
watching. Stick to the original.

to production. Kelly’s short “The
Goodbye Place” is an intriguing
forerunner to Darko. There’s also a
“production diary” - basically an
hour of behind-the-scenes footage
- and a slew of new interviews.
Pretty much everything from the
previous releases is included too

(three commentaries, features on
fandom, trailers, infomercials and
more). The limited edition version
comes with a collector’s book,
poster and postcards, will salmon

• The role of paedophile life coach Jim

1 Cunningham (played by Patrick Swayze)
was initially offered to David Hasselhoff.

106 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

THREE WISHES
FOR CINDERELLA

A whole different ball game

EXTRAS

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

1973 PG DVD

Director Vaclav Vorlicek

► Cast Libuse Safrankova, Pavel
Travnicek, Carola Braunbock

festive TV schedules not only in
its homeland but also Germany,
Switzerland and Norway, this
fairytale adventure may
demolish any preconceptions
you had about Czech cinema.

Filmed partly in East
Germany, its story unfolds in
stunning snowy vistas, to a
swoonsome harpsichord and
woodwind score. Based on a
different version of the classic
tale to that which inspired most
adaptations, it has no fairy
godmother or pumpkin
transformed into a coach.
Instead, Cinders cracks open
three magical hazelnuts to
provide her costume changes

- and even this fantastical
element is downplayed.

This Cinders is far less
passive than usual - a spirited
girl, in tune with nature. Yes,
she ends up hitched to the
Prince, but initially she’s more
interested in riding her horse

- and both her horsemanship
and prowess with a bow are
the match of any man. It’s an
utterly charming production

- and a rare old-fashioned
fairytale unlikely to grate with
feminist viewers.

• Pavel Travm'Dek (the Prince) dubbed

I Jeff Goldblum’s role for the Czech
release of Independence Day.

MORGAN

Gene genie

'k'k'k EXTRAS ★★★★

► RELEASED 9 JANUARY

2016 15 Blu-ray/DVD

i> Director Luke Scott

► Cast Kate Mara, Anya Taylor- Joy, Paul
Giamatti, Toby Jones

Blade Runner found Ridley Scott
exploring the notion of artificial
lifeforms, Morgan sees son - and
creative heir - Luke Scott take on
genetic engineering, a topic that’s
moved closer to the edge of
possibility since Harrison Ford
chased down replicants back in ’82.

A prim, chilly Kate Mara is a
risk management consultant,
assigned to report on a troubled
project to create a synthetic being
known as Morgan. She’s played
with a fierce otherworldliness by
The Witch’s Anya Taylor- Joy, a
shadowed, hooded presence with
the body language of a wary
animal and the internalised
intensity of a damaged child.

She’s great in this: empathic,
unknowable, polite, lethal.

Echoing Ex JMachina, Scott
fashions a compact, provocative
parable out of a science-baiting
premise, though it’s a movie that
feels deadened by its own

Hoodies and
chess: rarely
seen together.

earnestness (Paul Giamatti’s turn
as an arrogant psych evaluator
brings much-needed humour
around the halfway point). A final
reel swerve into Bourne-style
action thriller reframes the whole
thing as a superpowered espionage
tale - a well- executed burst of
adrenaline, but one that leaves this
21st century Frankenstein just a
little less out of the ordinary.

© Extras Documentary “Modified
Organism: The Science Behind
Morgan” (20 minutes) explores
the technology - and ethical
implications - of genetic
engineering. Packed with expert
opinions, it’s heartening and
chilling in equal measure. Loom is
a short film written and directed
by Luke Scott (20 minutes), a
moody, Ridley-indebted dystopian
tale that shares a thematic
connection with Morgan. Six
minutes of deleted scenes include
one that reveals Morgan’s
androgynous nature. The movie
itself, the short and the deleted
scenes all come with optional
commentary by Scott; you also get
a gallery and trailers. Nick Setchfieid

• Luke Scott’s in Alien, when the Nostromo

I crew approach the derelict ship - his dad
used kids to make the sets look bigger.

(ROUND UP)

The joy that is
YONDERLAND SERIES
THREE (out now, DVD)
sees Debbie facing a
house move that will sever
her ties to the fantastical
realm - just as it’s taken
over by Stephen Fry’s
Cuddly Dick (despite the
name, he’s a right
bastard). You’d think all
this puppet-filled silliness
would get old after three
years, but nope, this
fantasy comedy show is
as witty, inventive and
downright delightful as
ever. Baffling decision of
the month: Network’s one
to give a ’70s telefantasy
favourite its HD debut in
single volumes. RANDALL
AND HOPKIRK
(DECEASED) VOLUME
ONE (9 January, Blu-ray)
features the first four
episodes, leaving 22 to go.
Guys! We’re short on shelf
space! Sadly this ITC
series’ great premise - a PI
investigates with the help
of his ghostly partner -
feels rather wasted on
down-to-earth cases
concerning stolen
diamonds or old bank
notes. The Village Of The
Damned-\s LET’S BE
EVIL (30 January, DVD)
sees gifted kids being
groomed for greatness in
a subterranean bunker...
cue rebellion. We said: “Its
drive is a single, flat note.
No mystery to unravel, no
plot developments, just
people looking scared
until the twist - which
isn’t worth waiting for.”
Finally, Netflix subscribers
should keep ’em peeled
for sci-fi actioner
SPECTRAL (out now,
SVOD), in which a
special-ops team including
Emily Mortimer takes on
ghost-like entities in a
European city of the
future. This was originally
going to be a theatrical
release, then a DVD, and
was unavailable for review.
All this surely signals one
thing: it’ll be, er, amazing?

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 107

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THE MASSACRE

Sometimes they come back.

'k'k'k'k

► RELEASED 19 JANUARY

464 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook

► Author Stephen Baxter

► Publisher Gollanez

reinterpretations of and sequels to
HG Wells’s The War Of The
Worlds. Whether we’re talking
books heavily influenced by Wells,
Orson Welles’s 1938 radio
broadcast, sundry movies, Jeff
Wayne’s overblown musical or the
underrated 1988 TV series, it’s a
text that constantly flnds its way
back to the centre of our culture.

It’s easy to understand why. It’s
a scientiflc romance that serves as
a template for every aliens-invade-
Earth narrative that’s followed.

For storytellers across all kinds of
genres, the temptation to go back
to the source is overwhelming.

Which is also why it’s not
unreasonable to treat new
adaptations and interpretations
with some cynicism. What is there
to add? Who cares about tripod
flghting machines and aliens so

rubbish (spoiler alert!) that they
don’t have flu jabs before invading
a foreign world?

Stephen Baxter’s sequel to
Wells’s SF foundation stone
provides the answer to these
questions. Authorised by the HG
Wells Estate, it’s a book that clears
away the cultural clutter that
surrounds the story, and instead
engages anew with the book itself
and with its author.

His starting point is the neat
idea that the first Martian invasion
wasn’t a full-blown invasion.
Rather, it was an exploratory,
fact-finding expedition, akin to
Christopher Columbus crossing
the Atlantic. As for that lack of flu

44 This is
not a flashy
book, but it’s
exciting and
tense 99

jabs, Baxter follows the cosmology
of Wells’s original story: the Sun is
gradually cooling and the Martians
have had to survive on an arid
planet where the ecosystem long
ago broke down. They’d forgotten
about bugs.

But the Martians are patient
and, rather than giving up, have
merely been biding their time. At
the dawn of the Jazz Age - Baxter
assumes the original invasion took
place in 1907 and creates an
alternate history where Britain
doesn’t side with France in 1914
- they return to southern England,
a prelude to further landings.

This time around, it’s an
invasion we see through the eyes
of a journalist and suffragette,

Julie Elphinstone. The shift in
perspective is important. If Wells’s
unnamed narrator, here dubbed
Walter Jenkins as we meet him
again, is traumatised by the
landings, Elphinstone brings a
reporter’s eye to analysing what
happens and atmospherically
describing what she personally
sees - and Elphinstone witnesses
horrors as aliens once again take
control of south-east England,
occasionally harvesting the human
population for food, which gives
her testimony more than a hint of
the zombie apocalypse.

If that suggests Baxter is having
some gentle fun at the expense of
genre cliches, that’s probably
intended, because it comes in the
context of a novel that’s full of sly
references. Even Elphinstone’s
somewhat dry tone, you suspect,
exists because she in some sense
represents Wells in her
rationalism, her ability to think
past obvious solutions and her
streak of utopianism. Let’s not
forget that Wells was an advocate
for women’s rights.

All of this doesn’t make for a
novel with a modern feel, and you
might argue that at moments it’s
too much of a pastiche. But Baxter
conjures up the idealistic spirit of
Herbert George as he updates his
stor34elling for the 21st century.
This is not a flashy book, but it’s
exciting, tense, and more than big
and clever enough to be something
of a triumph. Jonathan Wright

• This isn’t Baxter’s first foiiow-up to Weiis.

I His 1995 novei The Time Ships was an
authorised sequei to The Time Machine.

THE BEAR AND
THE NIGHTINGALE

Cold hands, warm heart

'k'k'k'ki

► RELEASED 26 JANUARY

336 pages | Hardback/ebook

► Author Katherine Arden

► Publisher Del Rey

this book wrapped in blankets,
preferably while sitting in front
of a roaring Are. Katherine
Arden’s debut is a fairytale set
in medieval Russia (aka Rus’),
and its depiction of life in a land
where it’s basically winter for
eight months of the year is so
detailed and vivid you can
practically feel the chill
numbing your Angers.

Growing up on her widowed
father’s rural estate, far to the
north of Moscow, Vasya drives
everyone around her to
distraction with her spirited
refusal to do the sorts of things
proper young ladies are
supposed to do, like mend
clothes and be obedient and
generally not go haring off into
the nearby haunted forest...

This being a fairytale, she
gets along badly with her
stepmother (whose Christian
piety clashes with Vasya’s
cheerful friendships with a host
of supernatural creatures) and
is being stalked by the
personiflcation of winter
(Morozko, a sort of homicidal
Russian Jack Frost). But this
isn’t just Generic Russian
Fantasyland™; Arden grounds
her story in a fascinating (and
turbulent) period of history.
Beautifully written and richly
textured, it’s a beguiling read.

Nic Clarke

• The Golden Horde (the Mongols who

1 ruled Rus’) were possibly named after
the colour of their Khan’s tent.

108 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Beviem

UNDER A
WATCHFUL EYE

Out of body, out of mind

'k'k'ki

► RELEASED 12 JANUARY

396 pages | Hardback/ebook

► Author Adam Nevill

► Publisher Maemillan

has been referred to as
“Britain’s answer to Stephen
King” and his latest chiller does
nothing to belie that. Though
this isn’t entirely a positive.

Reclusive novelist Seb is
happy in his isolated property
in Devon - fastidious, a neat
freak, he’s contented in his
middle class idyll. But a ghost
from Seb’s past is about to
insinuate himself in his life - a
former housemate and radical
thinker, now destructive
alcoholic, who’s allied himself
with a dark society who claim
to be mastering the art of
astral projection.

It’s a novel of two halves, the
first focused on the grumpy
author’s disgust with his
uninvited house guest (the
descriptions of old friend Ewan
are alive with stink and rot and
judgement) and the second an
existential meta-narrative. This
isn’t Nevill at his best - it’s
more like some of King’s
weaker books, but it is at least
brave and experimental, and
unlike some King, Nevill doesn’t
have a problem with endings.
Compelling but meandering,
full of big ideas and difficult
characters. Under A Watchful
Eye is a smart, mildly
depressing B -novel from a
writer who is still a master of
his craft. Penny Archer

• Nevill first thought of much of the story

I back in 2003, and partially developed
it in 2009 short story “Yellow Teeth”.

EMPIRE GAMES

Spies in the multiverse

'k'k'ki

► RELEASED 26 JANUARY
326 pages | Hardback/ebook

► Author Charles Stress

► Publisher Tor

make it hard for new readers to
leap on-hoard - and when a series
dramatically evolves, like Charles
Stress’s Merchant Princes saga, the
problem just gets bigger. What
began in 2004 as a satirical
SF-based take on portal fantasy
has shifted over the years into an
apocalyptic techno -thriller, and
new volume Empire Games changes
things even more drastically.

Picking up the action 17 years
after a conflict between alternate
versions of Earth resulted in a
terrorist attack on the White
House, America is now a paranoid
security state in constant fear of
“world-walkers” - people who can
travel between alternate timelines.

The plot follows Rita Douglas,
a woman recruited hy the US

44 A lot of
catching up
to do for new
readers 99

government as a potential
world-walking spy. Rita’s story
also intersects with that of Miriam
Beckstein (of Merchant Princes)
and the novel weaves a convoluted
web of conspiracies, economics,
intrigue and science.

Stress’s ferociously imaginative
world-building is on full display
here, with the novel often playing
like a straighter approach to the
kind of satirical espionage action
he’s explored in his Laundry
series. While the results are
frequently entertaining, there’s an
awful lot of catching up to do for
any new readers, and it does
sometimes feel like the saga’s
overall story is getting so complex
that it’s running out of control.

The sprawling, disparate plot isn’t
helped by Empire Games being the
first volume in a new trilogy,
meaning it’s almost all scene-
setting and very little resolution.

However, there’s also enough
promise here to suggest that
things should be on a firmer
course in future volumes. And
even with its flaws, Stress’s latest
is still proof that few other writers
in SF can match him for humour,
creativity and sheer density of
ideas. Saxon Bullock

• Stress also has two Laundry novels in the

1 pipeline - The Delirium Brief, due in June,
followed by The Labyrinth Index in 2019.

THE LAST
SACRIFICE

Riders On The Storm

'k'k'k'k

» RELEASED 5 JANUARY

400 pages | Paperback/ebook

► Author James A Moore

► Publisher Angry Robot

first book in the new Tides Of
War series, and you might
dismiss it as a derivative
concoction. A cliched mash-up
of David Gemmell and Game Of
Thrones? You soon realise how
unfair that is.

Sure, it revels in genre staples.
Spineless kings, ruthless
slavers, axe-throwing clansmen
and icy northern wastes are all
present. And the prose tends
towards the predictable:
darkness swallows people
whole as warriors’ hearts
hammer in their chests. Blah.

But the setting is creepier
and the story cleverer than that
first impression. James A
Moore lends a delicious moral
ambiguity to the characters. In
his universe, regular human
sacrifices keep the apocalypse
at bay. When the grotesque
He-Kisshi snatch Brogan
McTyre’s entire family at once,
he rebels. At once, storms batter
the world and McTyre finds
himself on the hoof from the
gods themselves...

A breakneck pace and a host
of viewpoints mean paying
attention is essential. The book
lacks the wry self-awareness
of Joe Abercrombie or the
sophisticated political intrigue
of George RR Martin. Yet it’s a
lively addition to that canon of
grim modern fantasy. Dave Bradley

• A prolific author, Moore still works at

1 Starbucks, explaining “it stops me from
becoming a complete hermit”.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 109

Bevkws

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfx

DOCTOR WHO:

THE PIRATE PLANET

Pieces of great

'k'k'k'ki

► RELEASED 5 JANUARY

406 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook

► Author James Goss

► Publisher BBC Books

stories that Douglas Adams wrote
in the late-70s, “The Pirate
Planet” is the last to finally receive
the posthumous novelisation
treatment - and with good reason.
Unlike the strike-scuppered
“Shada”, it actually aired. It was
also part of a wider arc, with the
Doctor searching the universe for
disguised fragments of the
universe-halancing Key to Time.

Set on a hollowed-out world
which materialises around other
planets then mines their mineral
wealth, it’s characteristically witty,
featuring delightfully Adamsian
concepts like an inertia-
neutralising corridor, and a
shamelessly OTT villain - the
perma-raging cyhorg Pirate
Captain. The TARDIS team of the
Fourth Doctor and Time Lady
Romana is wonderfully insouciant,
and author James Goss has a good
handle on both - particularly the
latter’s unshakeable sangfroid.

If there’s a minor problem, it’s an
old one: filling out a TV script to
the length of a chunky hardback
necessitates a good deal of padding
via interior monologue. However,
the fact that the book is based on
Adams’s no doubt unfilmable first
draft more than compensates,
resulting in a treasure trove of
fascinating new material. There are
minor differences - the telekinetic
Mentiads are now called
Mourners, for example. There’s an
extra K-9 subplot. There are new
scenes featuring an interrogation
device called the Knowhere - this
entails a Dalek cameo! And a
postscript gives the TARDIS
console room a radical makeover.

That’s not all though, with
appendices sharing an Adams
treatment which - though sharing
basic plot elements - is 80%
different, and notes in which he
muses on a female Master! So in
terms of giving you extra Douglas
for your dollar, this is the best
novelisation yet. Essential
reading for fans of both Adams
and classic Who. lan Berriman

• In notes on the Key to Time, Adams

1 suggests one piece could be

Buckingham Palace, or Stonehenge!

THE CORE
OF THE SUN

The Hotmouth’s Tale

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

303 pages | Paperback/ebook

► Author Johanna Sinisalo

► Publisher Grove Press

the “Ministry Of Health” had
pursued eugenics to such a
degree that nearly all women
were born docile and submissive
to men. Now also imagine that
in that world alcohol and other
drugs had been completely -
and effectively - banned. And,
in a bid for a high unobtainable
elsewhere, people had turned to
chili peppers; burning their
mouths, stimulating their senses
and leaving them in eternal
pursuit of an ever hotter variety.

Yes, this all just got a bit
absurd, but not in a bad way
- the parallels between the
breeding of both humans and
plants in pursuit of perfection
are plain but not over-laboured.
Protagonist Vanna appears to be
a meek, dutiful “femiwoman”,
but in a quirk of genetics she
actually possesses the
intelligence and independence
of the shunned neuterwomen.
Addicted to chilis and searching
for her missing sister, Vanna
befriends a religious cult who
are trying to breed a chili so hot
it will take users to a higher
plane of existence...

This is more “entertaining
thriller” than “feminist classic”,
painting gender politics with
broad brush strokes, but it’s
also an absorbing read with
some impressive world-
building. Rhian Drinkwater

• The active ingredient in chilis is capsaicin,

1 which causes a burning sensation when
it comes into contact with human tissue.

BULLET TIME

A BOOK IN
BULLET POINTS

ARE YOU IN THE
HOUSE ALONE?

► RELEASED OUT NOW!
342 pages | Hardback

► Editor Amanda Reyes

► Publisher Headpress

• This “TV movie
compendium 1964-1999”
is subtitled Growing Up
With Gargoyles, Giant
Turtles, Valerie Harper, The
Cold War, Stephen King &
Co-ed Call Girls. Phew!

• The first 77 pages
feature erudite essays on
subjects like Wes Craven’s
small-screen horror films
and World War III as
portrayed in TV movies.

• Then there’s a huge
section of reviews
featuring the likes of
The Night Stalker,

Ki I Idozer and Trilogy
Of Terror (along with
non-fantastical material).

• Well written, weighty
and full of enthusiasm
for its subject matter,
this is a brilliant and
valuable book for those
interested in a much-too-
neglected genre.

• A limited edition
hardback is available now
from www.headpress.com,
with a paperback edition
due in May.

no I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

WHSmith

DEFENDER

The voices made them do it

► RELEASED 12 JANUARY
451 pages | Hardback/ebook

► Author GX Todd

► Publisher Headline

anything new to bring to the
post-apocalyptic table, it ate
most of it before it rang the
doorbell, leaving a few crumbs
and the screwed-up packaging.
Oh, and some ridiculously long
extended metaphors.

Set in a world left ravaged
after voices told people to kill
themselves, there are trace
elements of a good idea here,
but they’re never developed.
Instead we get a massively
padded, glacially slow road
movie of post apocalyptic
cliches, with the voices
remaining an irritatingly vague,
largely unexplored concept.

A Mad Max analogue called
Pilgrim (who has a Voice, but is
so taciturn he may as well not
have) hooks up with a plucky
teenager, Lacey, and another
woman called Alex, who has no
discernible character at all.
Together they try (and fail) to
avoid becoming torture porn
for some bad guys who didn’t
quite make the cut for The
Walking Dead. There’s a
potentially gamechanging twist
halfway through that threatens
to make things interesting... but
then, disappointingly, the book
hits a reset button.

There’s a hint of an arc plot
about the voices to be explored
in - Lord help us - three more
books, but this opening volume
doesn’t give you much reason to
return to this world. Dave Colder

• Author GX Todd holds an HGV licence,

1 because she drives a 35-foot-long
mobile library around the Midlands.

RDSEDLDOD

Love never dies - sadly

★

► RELEASED 10 JANUARY
432 pages | Hardback/ebook

► Author AG Howard

► Publisher Amulet Books

romances rarely set the quality
bar very high, but this one’s so
low it’s limboing under it.

Set in an American music
school, RoseBlood, in an opera
house in France, it’s the classic
tale of weird girl meets equally
odd, but handsome boy and
together they overcome the
usual mean girls and snotty
teachers to find Twoo Wuv. In
this case the boy in question is
the adopted son of the Phantom
of the Opera, and the girl has
inherited the voice of the
Phantom’s lost love.

It’s hard to know what to
criticise first. The basic idea
isn’t revolutionary, but it could
have been turned into
something interesting.

However, the France in the
novel bears little resemblance
to the actual country (there’s
more than one reference to a
past “Emperor of Paris”, for
goodness’ sake), the opera
house appears to have been
dreamt up by someone with no
knowledge of architecture
(though the bordello -chic
decor gets described in some
detail), and somehow a school
of 50 pupils and six teachers
who also do the cleaning is
massively prestigious. Cliched
characters are the least of its
problems. This book deserves
to be buried under every
chandelier on the planet.

Miriam McDonald

• Phantom creator Gaston Leroux made

I film versions of many of his novels -
but not his most famous one.

EXCLUSIVE

DEFER!

GET DC COMICS
UNIVERSE GUIDE

TAKE THIS TO YOUR LOCAL HIGH STREET WHSMITH

FOR A MASSIVE
SAVING!

Only £4 with this voucher (rrp £ 17 . 99 )

This voucher entitles you to get DC Comics Universe Guide for £4.
Voucher is valid from 3 January 2017 to 31 January 2017 only in
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stores including those at airports, railw/ay stations, motorway service
stations, hospitals and work places. Subject to availability. Cannot be
used in conjunction with any other promotional voucher. Only one
voucher can be redeemed per transaction and it must be surrendered
upon use. No cash alternative. Photocopies will not be accepted and the
voucher is not transferable. WHSmith reserves the right to reject any
voucher it deems, in its sole discretion, to have been forged, defaced or
otherwise tampered with.

Bevkws

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfx

REISSUES

This month’s pick of the
paperbacks is Alastair
Reynolds/Stephen Baxter
team-up THE MEDUSA
CHRONICLES (★★★★ ,12
January, Gollancz), which
continues the story of
Howard Falcon, a cyborg
explorer from
Arthur C
Clarke’s 1971
novella A
Meeting With
Medusa. When
a machine
achieves
consciousness, it sets the
scene for a conflict
between humankind and an
emergent machine
civilisation. We said:

“There’s sometimes a
Clarke-ish dryness. Some of
the characters seem
underdeveloped too...
Happily, such faults fall
away when the duo’s own
storytelling takes flight.”
No-nonsense women are to
the fore in Susan Dennard’s

YA fantasy TRUTHWITCH

(★★★★ , 12 January, Tor),
which follows two young
witches forced to flee their
home after
clashing with
a powerful
Guildmaster.
One has the
ability to
discern truth
from lies, a
valuable skill which soon
makes her a target... We
said: "Truthwitch casts off
the current trend for gritty
fantasy with a joyous laugh
and a cheeky wink.” Finally,

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

(★★★★ , 19 January, Orbit)
will delight fans of the
cultish podcast of the same
name, set in a small desert
town that’s the site of all
manner of
weirdness. This
spin-off novel
centres on an
urgent

message from
a man who’s
so eerily
forgettable that no one
can quite remember what
he wanted them to do... We
said: “The writers have a
well-practised rhythm that
allows them to wring charm
and humour from even the
most grotesque ideas,
and their distinctive style
carries over seamlessly
from audio to print.”

THE X-FILES: ORIGINS

Teenage Agents Mulder, Scully

'k'k'k'k

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

320/368 pages | Paperback/ebook

► Authors Kami Garcia/Jonathan Maberry

► Publisher Atom

screens last year for a rather mixed
set of six episodes; despite a
handful of enjoyable moments,
ultimately it was a let-down. If the
teenage Mulder had been around
to witness it, you can bet he’d have
been disappointed. We learn here
that the young Fox is pretty
judgmental when it comes to sci-fi
TV, at one point doubting a cop’s
professional abilities because he’s
wearing a Battlestar Galactica
t-shirt instead of a Star Trek one.

Well, if you see someone
wearing a The X-Files: Origins
t-shirt the next time you’re being
interrogated by the police, you
should congratulate them on their
good taste, because YA origin
stories Agent Of Chaos and Devil’s

44 Thanks to
this we now
want two
new X-Files
shows 99

Advocate are both excellent. Going
further than IDW’s comics
miniseries - which separates its
X-leads, but at least features both
of them in every issue - here one
book (Agent Of Chaos) focuses on
Mulder, while the other (Devil’s
Advocate) follows Scully. True to
the TV series, which has them
meeting for the first time as adults,
these books keep them apart.

Which isn’t to say they’re not
connected. They’re both set in
1979 (Fox is 17, Scully 15), both
feature last-gasp cameos from a
major X-Fz7es m5Thology character,
both contain significant
personality evolutions (Fox and
Dana are on journeys to the
personas we know), and both have
twisty/entertaining plots. Agent Of
Chaos sees Mulder investigating
child disappearances, uncovering
a dark conspiracy; meanwhile, in
Devil’s Advocate, Scully gets
caught up in a sinister cult that has
her believing in ghosts. But is
there a rational explanation?

Forget the muddled TV return.
Thanks to Origins we now want
not one but two new X-Files shows
- one following Mulder, and one
following Scully. These books
make us want to believe it’s
possible... Sam Ashurst

• Kami Garcia previously wrote a young Fox

1 story for 2016 anthology The Truth Is Out
There (edited by Jonathan Maberry).

A PROMISE
OF FIRE

A guarantee of a shag

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

442 pages | Paperback/ebook

► Author 7\manda Bouchet

► Publisher Platkus

first, because that’s really what
this book is about. It’s your
usual tale: man meets woman,
they fight constantly, but they
are fated to be together, so
there’ll be lots of euphemisms
for feeling horny and some
eventual knobbing. Abduction
is not a good starting point for a
relationship, but the romance
genre is a funny one where
pretty much everything -
kidnapping, physical violence,
refusal to listen to what the
other person wants -
constitutes deep and abiding
love. Don’t try it at home.

However, we’re here for the
fantasy. An awful lot of fantasy
romances fall back on
thinly- disguised historical
settings. Amanda Bouchet
doesn’t do that, though her land
divided into three kingdoms
seems a fairly limited setting.
Likewise the manoeuvrings for
the thrones are fairly simplistic
- though it’s no worse than a lot
of the average books filling up
the fantasy shelves, which can
be equally trite.

The really odd thing is the
gods of this world: they’re the
Greek pantheon. It means
Bouchet doesn’t have to explain
them, but it really does convey
how limited her world-building
is. Overall, a pretty weak book.

Miriam McDonaid

• Worship of the ancient Greek gods is

1 officially recognised in Greece - there
are around 2,000 adherents.

112 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

THE STOLeIcHILD |

With a faery, hand in hand ^

AN OTHER PLACE |

Package tour to hell ^

★★★★■y 1

★★★★ 1

► RELEASED 12 JANUARY |

► RELEASED OUT NOW! |

336 pages Hardback/ebook p

307 pages Paperback/ebook ^

► Author Lisa Carey ^

► Author Darren Dash ^

► Publisher Weidenfeld & Nieholson ^

► Publisher Home Of The Damned Ltd ^

“haunting” and “ambiguous” ^

make you roll your eyes, best ^

pass onto the next review; Lisa ^
Carey’s fifth novel is the very ^

definition of slow burn, and all ^
the better for it. ^

In 1959, American midwife ^

Brigid travels to Ireland, to ^

the remote island home of ^

her namesake saint (and her ^

own migrant mother), in ^

search of a fabled healing ^

well. Instead she finds herself ^

drawn to her lonely, angry ^

neighbour, Emer, and Emer’s ^

eccentric, vulnerable son, Niall. ^

Is Emer’s fear that Niall is a ^

changeling simply an ^

expression of her own ^

unhappiness, or does ^

something dark and powerful p

lurk on the island? p

It’s a brave author who ^

names their book after a Yeats p

poem. But Carey’s understated p

tale of complex women living ^

complex lives is steeped in the ^
strange, chilly tone of that 19th ^
century verse. Yeats’s ^

bittersweet refrain (“For the ^

world’s more full of weeping ^

than you can understand”) is ^

encapsulated in both the ^

day-to-day hardships of ^

unhappy marriages and hard ^

labour, and the longer-term ^

decline of a community whose ^

children invariably leave for ^

a better life on the mainland. ^

A challenging read, but a ^

rewarding one. Nic Clarke ^

story is to get a hero to climb a ^
tree, then spend the middle act ^
throwing rocks at him. This ^

novel focuses on the “throwing ^

rocks” bit. Its luckless hero ^

starts out as a mildly ^

discontented IT whiz; then ^

he plunges into the Twilight ^

Zone, moving from ghastly ^

scenarios to even ghastlier ^

scenarios with such horrid ^

reliability that his story reads ^

like extreme black comedy. ^

After enj oying Amsterdam ^

with his hedonistic pals, ^

puddle- shallow Newman ^

Ripley is bundled on a plane for ^
a mystery tour, destination ^

unknown. Soon, things get ^

extremely weird - we shouldn’t ^
spoil too much, but the action p

revolves around a city and its p

“inhuman” people, providing ^

endless puzzles for Newman ^

and the reader. ^

Darren Dash is better known ^

as teen horror author Darren ^

Shan, but this is not definitely ^

YA fiction (there are gut- ^

munching massacres, and a ^

heck of lot of sperm). The story ^
throws new curveballs just ^

when it seems to be going stale. ^
Newman (narrating in an ^

urgent present tense) often acts ^

in revolting ways, yet with ^

enough self-awareness to stay ^

sympathetic. The ending is fair, ^

if a bit of a letdown after the ^

book’s biggest shocks. Morbidly ^

entertaining. Andrew Osmond ^

• When a creepy bloke connplimented ^

1 her eyes, St Brigid plucked one out ^

X and gave it to him. Hardcore. V

• The author (real name Darren ^

1 O’Shaughnessy) wrote An Ofy^erP/ace ^
X over 18 years, beginning it in 1998. v

FROSTBLOOD

Flaming annoying

► RELEASED 12 JANUARY
384 pages | Paperback/ebook

► Author Elly Blake

► Publisher Hodder & Stoughton

young woman, Ruby, who is
a Fireblood - a magic user
with an affinity for fire.
Unfortunately she lives in
Frostblood territory, where
Firebloods are persecuted and
killed. So of course Ruby goes
and practises her magic in the
woods near her hut, causing all
sorts of tragedy and setting her
on a path for revenge against
the feared Frost King.

The biggest problem with
Frostblood is its protagonist,
who’s an incredibly difficult
character to love (and this is
meant to be a love story). She’s
impetuous, selfish and
needlessly rude to her allies -
all in all, an unpleasant
character to read about. If
you can’t enjoy the main
character what’s there to root
for? Sure, the bad guys must be
defeated, but without a
connection to the heroine you
might struggle to care whether
she triumphs or not.

Frostblood does have some
redeeming qualities. Some of
the secondary characters are
interesting: Arcus, the
mysterious Frostblood and
his mentor Brother Thistle
don’t grate nearly as much as
Ruby. And the magic and
m 3 ^hos, while a little familiar,
are interesting and encourage
a curiosity that may sustain
you through to the end.

Bridie Roman

• Elly Blake is a big Star Trek fan. She and

I her husband watched a Trek movie on
their first date; she wore a Data t-shirt!

ALSO OUT

One big release we were
unable to review this issue
(due to an embargo) is
CARVE THE MARK (17
January, HarperCollins
Children’s Books), by
Divergent’s Veronica Roth.
A Star Wars-y SF fantasy,
it’s set on a planet where
“everyone develops a
current-gift, a unique
power meant to shape the
future”. We’ll bring you
our verdict in SFX 284,
when we’ll hopefully also
look at TALES FROM THE
FORBIDDEN ZONE (24
January, Titan Books) a
16-story collection set in
the world of the original
Planet Of The Apes series.
Meanwhile, THE DARK
DAYS PACT (26 January,
Walker Books) sees Alison
Hoodman continuing her
Lady Helen trilogy, in
which a super-strong
heroine battles demons in
1812 - picture Buffy
discovering her Slayer
strength in repressed
Regency England. Our
reviewer awarded book
one. The Dark Days Club,
★★★★★, calling it “a joy
from start to finish”. Also
getting a second outing:
KM McKinley’s steampunk
fantasy series Gates Of
The World, set in a world
shifting from magic to
industry. We awarded
series-opener The Iron
Shipiriri^ir . THE CITY
OF ICE (12 January,

Solaris) continues the
story, visiting an aeons-old
city, deep in the polar
south. Finally, there are
also new entries for Sylvia
Hunter’s Midnight Oueen
trilogy (LADY OF MAGICK,
10 January, Allison &
Busby), and Greg Bear’s
military SF saga War Dogs
(TAKE BACK THE SKY, 26
January, Gollancz). Phew!

Feviews

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfic

TRINITY

The Heroic Trio

44 Has a
satisfying
sense of
charm and
character 99

after Clay Mann takes over art
duties in the third issue.

At its best, Trinity has a
satisfying sense of charm and
character. Unfortunately, there are
also moments where Manapul’s
exploration of Superman and
Batman’s past tries to be profound
but ends up falling flat. There’s
little here story- wise that feels
genuinely fresh or new, and while
the visuals are often gorgeous -
especially thanks to Manapul
doing all the art on issues one and
two - the pacing is haphazard and
lacks momentum.

Then there’s the Superman-
sized elephant in the room: the
fact that instead of making
Trinity an accessible jumping-on
point, the series is wired into
current DC continuity to a
head-spinning degree. This
means that much of the story
is dealing with Superman’s
bewildering new status quo
(where the most recent version
of Superman has died and been
replaced by the pre-iVew 52
Superman), resulting in a script
that’s a little too heavy on the

infodumps.

It’s always possible these
teething troubles may be worked
out once the series gets a few
more issues under its belt. Trinity
has deflnite promise and moments
that shine, but unlike some of
Rebirth's more successful titles, it
isn’t currently living up to the
potential of its super-powered
stars. Saxon Bullock

• Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman

1 appeared together for the first time in
1947’s All-Star Comics issue 36.

the bond between the three heroes
results in them being taken on a
mysterious tour of strangely
altered versions of their past.
They’re soon forced to question
their reality, but it becomes clear
that there could be deadly
consequences if they don’t escape
- especially since the villainous
Poison Ivy is the one responsible
for their predicament...

Written by Francis Manapul
(best known for The Flash),

Trinity largely steers clear of
large-scale superhero punch-ups
for a quieter, more reflective
approach to DC’s Big Three. It’s a
decision that leads to a number of
effective moments in these first
three issues, and is helped by some
imaginative page layouts, even

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

► Publisher DC Comics

► Writer Francis Manapul

► Artists Francis Manapul, Clay Mann

They’re three of the

best-known superheroes in the
world, so it’s no surprise that DC
have once again brought
Superman, Batman and Wonder
Woman together for an ongoing
series. Part of the DC Rebirth line.
Trinity aims to give us a new,
character-centric perspective on
the trio, while also exploring how
they represent different (and
sometimes contrasting) aspects
of the superhero archetype.

The basic set-up is that a visit to
Smallville aimed at restoring

SURGEON X

The Drugs Don’t Work

'k'ki

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

► Publisher Image Comics

► Writer Sara Kenney

► Artist John Watkiss

It’s not often that

an editor receives a cover
credit, but with her reputation
preceding her, it’s no surprise
that Karen Berger (formerly
Executive Editor of Vertigo)
receives third billing on her
first project for Image.

Given her experience, it’s
regrettable that Berger hasn’t
ironed out the flaws in Sara
Kenney’s otherwise promising
comics debut. Strikingly
illustrated by John Watkiss,
it’s set in a dystopian London
devastated by an “antibiotics
apocalypse”, with medicines
strictly rationed.

With issue three listing
15 “key scientific consultants”,
the documentarian has clearly
painstakingly researched her
harrowingly plausible scenario,
but that doesn’t always make
for smooth reading, as the
narrative is overloaded with
exposition. The first issue
opens with a terrorist attack on
City Hall before flashing back
to past events, and it would
have been less confusing to get
to know the characters first
before being thrown into the
action. Main character Rosa
Scott doesn’t endear herself
either, as she quits her hospital
job and turns vigilante surgeon.
But with an intriguing subplot
involving the death of Rosa’s
mother. Surgeon X is worth
persevering with, if only for the
sumptuous art. Stephen Jewell

• You can download a Surgeon X app

I with behind-the-scenes content,

documentaries and black and white art.

114 I SFX MAGAZINE I MABCH 20)7

In association with

www.selfmadehero.com

Reviews

DOCTOR WHO; THE
THIRD DOCTOR

Three Two fun

'k'k'k'k'k

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

► Publisher Titan Comics

► Writer Paul Cornell

► Artist Christopher Jones

After

last year’s Four
Doctors team-up,
you’d have thought
Paul Cornell would
have been happy using just one
of the Time Lord’s incarnations
when it came to this new series.
But as the first issue cliffhanger
reveals, opening story “The
Heralds Of Destruction” also
involves the Second Doctor,
as an alien robot invasion of a
Bedfordshire village turns out
to be anything but routine.

It’s set in the aftermath of
“The Three Doctors”, and
Cornell throws in many
delightful references to classic
and current continuity. There’s
also a stunning twist at the
end of the third issue which
ensures that you re-evaluate
all that has gone before.

With shades of Cornell’s This
Damned Band, the Third Doctor
also takes a psychedelic trip
into companion Jo Grant’s
groovy unconscious, expertly
illustrated by Christopher
Jones. Neatly capturing the
likenesses of Pertwee’s Doctor
along with Roger Delgado’s
Master and the UNIT team,
Jones makes a perfect foil for
Cornell, who here produces
some of his finest work in the
Whoniverse. Shame, then, that
this five-parter is set to be his
last Who work. Stephen Jewell

• Cornell also has a new short story in

1 anthology The Mammoth Book Of The
Mummy, out at the end of the month.

SEVEN TO ETERNITY

A Fistful Of Magic

'k'k'ki

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

► Publisher Image Comics

► Writer Rick Remender

► Artist Jerome Opena

<Tulp craziness’’

seems to be the default setting for
writer Rick Remender, as he’s
been demonstrating in creator-
owned Image Comics titles like
crime thriller Deadly Class and
sci-fi adventure Black Science.
Now he’s got a brand new series
in which to showcase his wild
imagination, and it’s backed up by
some truly jaw-dropping visuals.

Seven To Eternity plays like a
lurid cross between Conun-style
high fantasy and a bleak Sergio
Leone-esque spaghetti Western.
The story’s set in Zhal, a world of
myth and magic where the

44 Remender
eranks the
weirdness up
to admirable
levels 99

terrifying Mud King sees and
knows all. Disgraced knight Adam
Osidis has one chance to save his
family - until his path crosses a
gang of magic users determined to
end the King’s reign...

Remender has cranked the
weirdness up to admirable levels
here, presenting Zhal as a rich,
complex world with secrets that
are only just starting to reveal
themselves. Admittedly, the ornate
world-building sometimes gets a
little excessive, making certain
sequences baffling instead of
intriguing, but even in its weaker
moments Seven To Eternity always
has the stunning art from Jerome
Opena to fall back on.

Remender and Opena have
collaborated before, and here the
artist (with colourist Matt
Hollingsworth) delivers incredible
work, with every page packed full
of imaginative designs and details.
The overall structure for Seven To
Eternity is already clear, and while
there are occasional stumbles,
this is shaping up to be another
distinctive and memorable genre
title from Image. Saxon Bullock

• Remender’s comic Deadly Class is being

1 developed as a TV series, with the Russo
Brothers onboard as executive producers.

SCARLET TRACES

Volume One

The tripods walk again

'k'k'k'k

► RELEASED 12 JANUARY

► Publisher Rebellion

► Writer Ian Edginton

► Artist DTsraeli

what happened

after the Martians were
defeated in The War Of The
Worlds? One of the more
interesting potential answers
can be found in Scarlet Traces,
a comic series by Ian Edginton
and D’Israeli that’s been running
intermittently since 2002.

This first collected volume
starts with a brisk adaptation of
The War Of The Worlds itself
(first published in 2006), which
channels HG Wells’s visionary
ideas and imagery into 65
pages. It’s a vivid, well-crafted
interpretation that also acts as a
fantastic prologue, as the action
then shifts forward to 10 years
after the Martian defeat.

Set in a version of Britain
that’s utilised the invaders’
technology to make itself an
unstoppable global power, this
first story arc of Scarlet Traces
is a lurid mystery thriller that
explores the darker side of the
Victorian era, while also setting
the scene for the stories to be
collected in volume two. There
are occasional weaknesses in
the characterisation, but
colourful world-building and
D’Israeli’s distinctive visual
style balance out the small
flaws. From its moody opening
to the surprisingly bleak
conclusion, this is an inventive
and intriguing take on Wells’s
legendary novel. Saxon Bullock

• Scarlet Traces was first created as a

1 semi-animated web serial, but the site
shut down after a handful of episodes.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 115

Feviews

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfx

THE LAST GUARDIAN

Finally leaving the nest

'k'k'k

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

► Reviewed on PS4

► Publisher Sony

Announced in 2007,

originally for PS3, this fantasy
adventure can make you feel so
many strong emotions: fear, joy,
elation, sadness. But was it worth
the wait?

In many ways, it’s a throwback.
This is purely a story- driven
single-player, third-person action
adventure experience. You play a
young boy who meets Trico, a
combination of bird and cat who’s
injured, trapped, and as lost as you
are. It’s like the fable of a lion with
a thorn in its foot, spread out over
nine hours, with a friendship that
grows and matures. Mostly you’ll
be clambering up scenery, solving
puzzles, and riding Trico, but
there are plenty of story beats.

Trico’s design impresses.
Whether shaking water off his
body or preening himself, his
appearance is a triumph. Good
thing too, because he’s a pain in
the backside. The juxtaposition of
the huge animal with the tiny
child, on huge landscapes, leads to
an occasionally confused
direction. The camera will zoom
in too closely at inopportune
moments, then shift to the most
inconvenient place. Mid-climb,
you’ll lose sight of what you’re
doing. And Trico can be
excruciatingly annoying. After a
while, you gain the ability to
command him. Sometimes he’ll do
things after one prompt, sometimes
three or four, or maybe he’ll just
ignore you for ages. Large parts of
the game require clinging to your
friend as he bounces from pillar to
ledge. But sitting and waiting for
Trico to do things isn’t fun.

There’s clearly been much love
and time invested in making this a
special game. Our hero limps if
harmed, and whispers instead of
shouting if in a dangerous
environment. It’s absurd how
much emotion the two characters
can convey. When the game hits
its stride, you lose yourself in it.
But the gameplay confusion can
make for frustrating moments.

It’s fantastic that there’s a
developer dedicated to making
games that veer towards the
artistic while retaining mechanics
we know and enjoy. But The Last
Guardian is full of design decisions
that feel stuck in the past. Still, for
every frustration there’s an area to
love exploring. Once the final
scenes play out, it feels like a
journey worth taking. Adam Cook

• Trico’s name derives from “toriko”, the

1 Japanese for prisoner, which combines
the words for bird (“tori”) and cat (“neko”).

★★★★★

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

(CD due 2 February)

114 minutes | Radio broadcast
(Now on iPlayer)

► Broadcaster Radio Four

Neil Caiman’s tale of a falling

star, a wandering teenager and
a village just on the edge of the
land of Faerie has been an
award-winning novel and an
award-winning film, and both
mediums brought their own
blend of magic and marvel to
the story. Now it’s a radio show,
and once again manages to fit
its form brilliantly.

This “romance within the
realms of Faerie” takes a classic
tale of a young man’s quest and
fills it full of Gaiman-esque
humour and twists, from a
fallen star that turns out to be a
living woman with a mind very
much her own to the rapidly
decreasing band of brothers
looking to inherit their father’s
throne. With material this good,
the challenge was always going
to be living up to it, but it’s one
ably met by director Dirk
Maggs, with this the most
successful of his Gaiman
adaptations to date.

Well paced and cast, with
exquisite narration from
Eleanor Bron and a wonderfully
malevolent turn from Frances
Barber as Morwanneg, it
perfectly captures the Victorian
village folk of Wall and the
mischievous, playful feel of the
land of Faerie beyond. Whether
you’ve read the book or seen
the film or are entirely new to
the story, this is a fantastical
delight to savour. Rhian Drinkwater

• Also on iPlayer: “The Duke Of

1 Wellington Misplaces His Horse”, by
Susanna Clarke, set in Stardusts world.

116 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Reviews

FINAL FANTASY XV

Cruise control

'k'k'ki

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

► Reviewed on PS4

► Also on XO

► Publisher Square Enix

We’re introduced to

Prince Noctis and his black-clad
entourage as they struggle to push
a convertible along the road.
Previous Final Fantasy games
have opened with Mako Reactor
assaults or futuristic cities being
attacked by a giant fish monster;
this sequel begins with grunts of
exertion, backed by a cover of
‘‘Stand By Me”.

It might seem a strange choice,
but it’s no coincidence Square
Enix went for this song as Final
Fantasy XVs theme. While Noctis
and pals aren’t children, there are
parallels with the coming-of-age
movie where four boys set out on
a quest to find a dead body. FFXV

also sees a trip away from home
teach four boys about friendship,
responsibility, loyalty, and
sacrifice. There’s a doomsday plot
too, but the main story thread’s
difficult to follow, with seemingly

important characters introduced
and suddenly dropped, and
influential events happening
off-screen. Yet it’s still enjoyable
because of its solid backbone -
those four pals and their road trip.
They may look like Thirty Seconds
To Mars got dropkicked through a
comic con, but Noctis’s friends are
a likeable bunch.

This is the most accessible
Final Fantasy yet, and by far the

most westernised. Combat is
hyperactive, cathartic fun that has
you zipping between enemies with
teleport dashes, stringing combos
together, switching weapons,
dodging, parrying and countering,
all in real-time. Moving around the
world is less thrilling. During long
drives, all you need to do is hold
R2. There’s only so much time you
can spend panning a camera and
watching androgynous anime
boys’ hair blowing in the wind like
some Japanese L’Oreal advert.

So Final Fantasy XV has issues,
but still ends up being one of the
most enjoyable JRPG experiences
of recent times, thanks to how
likeable the boys are, how
entertaining the combat is, and
how gorgeous its fantasy world is.
Though the story bewilders and
blunders to its conclusion, the
human element makes the ending
impactful. It’s a bumpy old ride,
but it’s worth seeing this road trip
all the way through to its final
destination. Kirk McKeand

• At one point Gladiolus wanders off for

1 a bit; this is to facilitate a forthcoming
DLC featuring the mulleted hunk.

Planet Earth 2
was more dramatic
than the first series.

DOCTOR WHO Original Sin/Cold Fusion

Murder, mystery and multiple Doctors...

► RELEASED OUT NOW!

120 minutes 1 180 minutes | CD/download

► Publisher Big Finish

Big Finish’s run of

adaptations of old Doctor Who
novels continues with two
adventures featuring lesser-known
spin-off companions Roz Forrester
and Chris Cwej, starting with their
debut story Original Sin

. First published in
the New Adventures
series in 1995, it’s a
pulpy, galaxy-
spanning thriller that
sees the Doctor
(Sylvester McCoy) and
Bernice Summerfield
(Lisa Bowerman)
getting involved in a
mystery involving a
missing spacecraft, and
soon being hunted for

murder by intergalactic cops
Forrester (Yasmin Bannerman) and
Cwej (Travis Oliver).

The story delivers strong
performances, colourful sci-fi
concepts and an enjoyable sense of
scale that’s closer to traditional
space opera. Unfortunately, there
are also a number of cliches on
display, alongside some clunky
moralising; the continuity-

dependent big twist is a bit of a
let-down; and both Roz and
Chris feel so bland here that it’s
almost a surprise when they end
up as companions.

Far more effective is Cold Fusion
★★★★ , the first book adapted

from the Missing Adventures series,
and an interesting take on the
multi-Doctor story. The focus here
is on the Fifth Doctor (Peter

Davison) who
arrives on a frozen
colony world in
the far future with
Adric, Nyssa and
Tegan, only to
find that he’s
already wanted as
a terrorist. In fact,
he’s accidentally
crossed paths
with the Seventh
Doctor, Roz and

Chris, but that’s soon the least of
his worries thanks to an ancient
device, ghostly apparitions and
a hibernating Time Lord...

Running at six episodes across
three hours. Cold Fusion is more
gently paced than Original Sin but
also more satisfying, combining
witty dialogue with gnarly SF
world-building. There are a few

44 Contrasts
two very
different eras
of Who ^

creaky supporting performances
and a dose of Who’s often-
impenetrable mid-’90s mythology,
but the lead actors do sterling
work, and overall this is a lively
adventure that successfully
contrasts two very different eras
in Who’s history. Saxon Bullock

• Also out (on 5 January): The Lost Angel,

I an original Twelfth Doctor adventure from
BBC Audio. Review next issue!

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 117

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features atgamesradar.com/sfiic

COLLECTABLES

Things weVe been playing with this month

i The year: 2056. A middle-
[ aged man sits wearing a
weary rueful smile. Star
Wars: Episode XXI has just hit
multimultimaxplexes accompanied
by the usual merchandise torrent,
including a load of mini-figures
just like the Star Wars Universe
3.75” figures (FPI price £8.99
each; product codes F5081, F5082,
F5083, F5085, F5086) that he

chucked out years ago - Kylo Ren,
K-2SO, Imperial Ground Crew, Jyn
Erso and a Stormtrooper. Shouldn’t
have done it - especially since they
were really well detailed, with
nifty add-ons, like Jyn’s projectile-
firing weapon. Silly sod!

Funko’s ongoing world
domination programme
moves to its next phase

with these Mega Pop! plushes

(FPI price £24.99 each; product
codes F5001, F5005), which apply
the oversized-bonce stylings of its
vinyl figures to 16” cuddly toys. On
the left we have The Nightmare
Before Christmas’s Jack
Skellington; over yonder on the
right, DC’s Spider- Gwen - we
particularly like her shiny hood.
This is just a small sample of a

range which also includes Batman,
Deadpool and Harley Quinn.

Enigmatic Deep Space Nine

warmongers the Breen have
inexplicably jumped
franchises to land on this Rogue
One Death Trooper travel mug
(FPI price £9.99; product code
F4698). What other explanation
could there be for the Death
Trooper’s long muzzle and
luminous green detailing, much
more Alpha Quadrant than galaxy
far, far away? Either this is the epic
Trek/Wars crossover we’ve been
waiting for our whole lives, or it’s
an invitation for Hollywood’s
impoverished rights lawyers to
earn some much-needed
post- Christmas cash.

118 I SEX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

All products are available at

forbiddenplanet

intarnationol
homt shopping

www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk
01621 877 222

Fevtem

THINGS
TO COME

More goodies on
their way soon

putting your thumb over both of
Harley’s intimate lady areas,
which feels faintly improper - but
then, you pervs probably consider
that a selling point.

I Even condiments have a
[ role to play in the ceaseless
fight against crime, citizens.
Just take a look at this pair of
Batman salt and pepper shakers
(FPI price £9.99; product code
F4828), ready to defend your
innocent plate of egg and chips
against the bland taste of injustice.
Place them together on your table
and watch as they unite to form
the mighty Bat-symbol, beacon of
hope to all. Why, it’s like a
shamelessly strained metaphor for
the Dynamic Duo themselves. ®

PUNISHER RETRO
FIGURE

♦ The latest riff on the
Mego toys of the VOs is
this linriited edition set
featuring the Marvel
vigilante. You get one
retro-look figure, plus
swappable heads and
outfits so you can play
dress-up with little
Frankie. Bless.

DAWN OF THE DEAD
DOLLS

Mezco pay tribute to
George Ronnero’s classic
1978 filnn with two nnore
of their 10”-high Living
Dead Dolls: chopper
pilot Stephen (aka
“Flyboy”) in undead
fornn, and the rot-faced
“plaid shirt zonnbie”
fronn the poster. Gross!

n’t you a little tall for a
^ Stormtrooper? The latest
wave of Star Wars Black
Series figures (FPI price £22.99
each; product codes F5075, F5079,
F5080) includes a slender Rogue
One Death Trooper who positively
towers over his white-and-black
cousins, and looks like he could do
with a good meal. Looking
significantly healthier are Jyn Erso
in her Jedha gear, and Cassian
Andor all togged up for Eadu. Also
available: grumpy droid K-2S0.

Ellen Ripley isn’t the
luckiest of people, but the
stoic expression on this
figure suggests that she’s taking it
all in her stride. That’s probably
thanks to her dope futuristic

high-tops and chunky yellow
Power Loader. This nifty Aliens
ReAction figure set (FPI price
£24.99; product code F3096) also
features a large, detailed and very
shiny Alien Queen. Her legs
frequently give way (even
Xenomorphs like their gin), but
the spiny tail acts as a useful prop.

Nope, this Harley Quinn
Bottle Opener (FPI price
£14.00; product code F3017)
isn’t Suicide Squad merch - it
features a likeness of the mallet-
wielding mistress of mayhem as
she appeared in Batman: The
Animated Series. Measuring 4”
long, it has magnets on the back
so you can slap it on the fridge.
Unfortunately, gripping it involves

AT-ACT KIT

♦ This Rogue One
Walker pieces together
from 45 parts, but
requires no glue or
tools to assemble,
making it suitable for
kids aged six and over.
It’s just one of four
“build and play” kits
coming from model
manufacturers Revell.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 119

Photography by Oily Curtis

WESTWORLD

Oh my god, they killed Teddy

•o

BEST MOMENTA

^ Maeve’s first journey
through Westworld’s
backstage in 1.06 “The
Adversary” finishing with her
watching herself in a promo
on a massive video screen.

BEST EPISODE

^ “Trompe L’Oeil” (1.07):
Bernard’s secret revealed!
Theresa murdered! Exploding
corpse! Epic horseback
action sequence!

TRIVIA

^ Songs heard on the player
piano include “Black Hole
Sun” (Soundgarden), “No
Surprises” (Radiohead), “The
House Of The Rising Sun”
(The Animals) and “Back To
Black” (Amy Winehouse).

► UK Broadcast Sky Atlantic, finished

► US Broadcast HBO, finished

► Episodes Reviewed 1.01-1.10

the old into the new,” chuckles
Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) in
episode three of Westworld. It’s a
statement that operates on so many
levels, ‘‘meta” doesn’t quite cover it.
It also sparked a conspiracy theory
among fans who were ultimately
vindicated in the show’s finale.
Westworld is all games within
games within games; a frequently
frustrating but equally fascinating
mash-up of different levels of
reality that refiected the themes of

a show about the fragility of
perception, artificial or otherwise.

When Ford talks of weaving the
old into the new, he’s talking about
using new technology on old
androids. He could just as easily be
talking about taking an old film
like Westworld (1973) and giving it
a 21st century makeover. So now
the plot isn’t just about robots at
a theme park developing glitches
and becoming killers, it’s about
the nature of AI and robotic
self-determination; Asimov given
a Philip K Dick reality check. In
the end, we also learn he’s talking
about the very nature of the show
itself, but... spoilers!

It’s a dangerous game - or series
of games, or concentric circle of
games, or whatever - to play, one
which could have seen
disconcerted viewers switching off
in droves. And at times that option
was tempting. Instead the show
evolves into a beautiful puzzle,
inscrutable but somehow still
utterly compelling, with enough
narrative cohesion and plot hooks
to draw you back, convinced that
next week it would all make sense.

Which in the end it does, just as
long as you don’t comb through
the details too meticulously...

It would be easy to dismiss the
final episode’s revelations about the

DID YOU SPOT

^ The gunslinger from the
1973 film (as played by Yul
Brynner) makes a brief cameo
in 1.06 “The Adversary”.

SF MOMENT OF THE YEAR T

^ The shot of an eyeball being
created in 1.03 “The Stray” is
so beautiful we absolve CGI
of any responsibility for the
Transform ers films.

120 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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TALES OF WAR FROM THE GRIM 0^
DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE

^ bldcklibrdry.com

'Mfewscneen

show’s structure as a gimmick. In
fact it reveals a show that has been
putting the audience in the place
of its characters in about as pure a
way as TV could ever achieve. The
android “hosts” struggle to make
sense of their lives because their
memories are the pla 3 ^hings of the
scientists who created them. And
that’s what watching the show is
like for the viewers: the
scriptwriters were fracturing our
understanding of what was going
on. We were their playthings.

But we were willing participants
because, pretentious as all that
might sound, the show is all kinds
of fun too, and exquisitely made. It
may have cost a fortune but the
money is on screen with some
breathtaking visuals; not just the
CG but the outstanding beauty of
the Wild West too, gloriously shot
on good old fashioned film (there
it goes, weaving old into new
again). The pilot has a spectacular
bank robbery set to an orchestral
version of “Paint It Black” that sets
the show’s stall when it comes to
outrageous and highly entertaining
action scenes. There’s some
delicious black humour

44 A beautiful
puzzle,
inscrutable
but utterly
compelling

throughout (Teddy dying virtually
every week has to be a South Park
gag, surely?), as well as moments
so poignant it breaks your heart.

It’s not flawless. The nudity
borders on gratuitous at times,
and there’s a massive missed
opportunity to discuss how a Wild
West park deals with the issue of
native Americans. Occasionally
the storytelling becomes too
enigmatic for its own good, and
Ford’s speechifying could happily
have been rationed out.

You can forgive all that, though,
because Westworld as a whole is
a mighty fine undertaking;
intelligent, thought-provoking,
visually stunning and more
entertaining than 99.9% of
ordinary Westerns. Dave Colder

BARBARA KEAN

Gotham brings us one of television’s most
spectacular character turnarounds

► UK Broadcast Channel 5, TBC ►US Broadcast Fox, Mondays

the Barbara Kean we see on
our screens in Gotham today
is the same Barbara Kean we
saw in the show’s first
season. Back then, she was
the epitome of a “love
interest”: you could picture
her winking out of existence
every time boyfriend Jim
Gordon wasn’t on screen.
Season one’s Barbara was
useless - a whining, crying
damsel in distress who
existed for no other reason
than for Jim to worry about
her. Fans hated her. The
writers didn’t seem to know
what to do with her. Lord
only knows how poor Erin
Richards felt about playing
such a spineless wet flannel.

And then... Barbara
went mad.

Sure, it was a bit
embarrassing at first. The
contrast between Boring
Barbara and Bonkers Barbara
was too striking to convince
- and it didn’t help that the
writers decided to spice
things up by having her turn

gay, which is, all too often,
more of a lame attempt to
lure in male viewers than it is
an 5 d:hing to do with creating
a real character. For a while
in season two, Barbara
seemed to exist purely to
titillate; she acted crazy
because it was sexy. Yawn.

However, as Gotham hit
its third season and Barbara
settled into her role as a
nightclub owner alongside
girlfriend Tabitha, something
became clear: Barbara is
brilliant. She’s hit her stride.
The woman who cowered at
crime now gleefully calls
Penguin “Pengie” and isn’t
scared of anything. She’s
smart, she’s funny and she’s
inventively, beautifully barmy.
We’d watch an entire show all
about her and Tabitha
running a gin joint and taking
down mobsters who sass
them. That one- dimensional,
pointless girlfriend has
finally winked out for good,
and the woman who’s
replaced her is a blast. Who
saw that coming? Jayne Nelson

MARCH 2017 1 SEX MAGAZINE I 121

y^ewsaven

BEST MOMENT ▲

^ When Raquel gets in a
playroom punch-up with
demonic single mum Mercy
(1.04), and stabs her in the tit
with a toy plane. Ouch.

BEST LINES

^ Callum: “We all know what
happened to the dodos.”
Raquel: “Did they have sex
with your mum?”

CRAZYHEAD

Howard’s Slay

► UK Broadcast E4, finished

► US Broadcast Netfiix, available now

► Episodes Reviewed 1.01-1.06

Overman. Yes, the creator of
Misfits has, since that show came
to an end, contributed scripts to
Atlantis (which he also co-
created), but they were pretty
decaffeinated compared to the
off-the-hook Overman who
brought us Asbo superheroes. So
it’s a delight to see him - as a
Crazyhead character might put it
- going balls out again.

Like Misfits, Crazyhead takes a
well-worn fantasy concept - in
this case demonic possession -
and strives to make it accessible to
a wider audience. Cara Theobold
plays Amy, who discovers that
rather than having mental health

issues she is a “see-er” with the
ability to see the faces of demons
walking among us. Susan Wokoma
is Raquel, the socially awkward
self-taught demon-hunter who
then befriends her.

As with Misfits, the fantastical
elements are firmly grounded in
workaday reality. As with Misfits,
there’s no dense mythology to
wrap your head around - these
girls are making it up as they go
along, reliant on Google for their
demonic lore. And as with Misfits,
the scripts are peppered with
scabrous humour.

Is it as successful as Misfits?
Well, not quite - but there’s no
shame in that, and it’s a pretty
close-run thing. In one respect,
Crazyhead actually bests its
predecessor: the focus on Amy
and Raquel’s developing bond

means that this is a show with
real warmth and heart. Indeed,
it’s a little disappointing that it
doesn’t tack further in that
direction, as cumulatively the piss,
shit and gay sex gags can get a
little wearing. The arc plot - such
as it is - is nothing to write home
about. And you have to feel for
Arinze Kene, lumbered with the
role of Raquel’s brother Tyler, a
hunk with no discernible
personality; when Amy’s
workmate/wannabe-boyfriend
Jake (the excellent Lewis Reeves)
dismisses him as “Coldplay” you
can only nod in agreement.

On the plus side there are some
interesting twists on the genre
- particularly a possessed single
mum who retains feelings for her
human son. Defiance’s Tony
Curran is dependably good value
as the perfectionist Callum, the
series’ demonic Big Bad. And that
central female friendship is strong
enough to hold everything
together. No Misfits then, but no
misfire - and as ‘‘British Buffy”s
go, arguably more successful than
Class. Ian Berriman

TRIVIA

^ Three of the regulars had
minor roles in the final series
of Misfits: Susan Wokoma (as
Roz - whoever the hell she
was - in 5.04); Lewis Reeves
(Ben, who faked terminal
illness in 5.06); and Riann
Steele (nurse Naomi in 5.04).

THE NAME GAME

^ When originally
announced, the show was
called Crazy Face. Which
means we can never
remember what the hell the
correct title is!

LOCATION LOCATION
LOCATION T

^ If you’re ever in Bristol, take
a stroll down the harbourside
past Amy’s flat (22 Liberty
Gardens, BSl 6JW). The idea
that a bowling alley
employee could afford to live
there is the most fantastical
thing about the series...

J22 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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In association with

TALES OF WAR FROM THE GRIM EH
DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE

^ bldcklibrdry.com

'Mfewscneen

LINE UP

The month’s most quotable dialogue

▼

S CRIPTEAS E

A TV season distilled

“Are
kittens

MISS QUILL

y if you
It their

dangerous?” worshippers
I online.”

Class,

Episode 1.07

r DIRK GENTLY

“Time? I laugh
at the concept. I
can spend a whole
day without even
trying.”

Dirk Gently’s Holistic
Detective Agency,

^ Episode I.OI .

LUCIFER ^

“I swear totell
the truth, the
whole truth, and
nothing but the
truth, so help
^ me Dad.” ,

JH Lucifer,

Episode 2.10 ^

I SEASON 2

LEGENDS OF
TOMORROW

Time-travel superteam
or history’s janitors?

► UK Broadcast Sky 1

► US Broadcast The CW

► Episodes Reviewed 2.01-2.05

VOICEOVER

Previously, on Legends
Of Tomorrow... Time
traveller RIP
HUNTER assembled
a motley crew of
second division DC
characters too
obscure or silly-
sounding to get their
own shows:
FIRESTORM!
HAWKGIRL!
HAWKMAN!
CAPTAIN COLD!

HEATWAVE!
WHITE CANARY!
THE ATOM! They
were not heroes, they
were legends! Who
bickered a lot.

Together they chased
a panto villain
through time until
they realised their
true enemies were
RIP’S bosses, the
Time Masters. So they
killed them all.
CAPTAIN COLD
sacrificed himself in
' the process, which
was sad, but does
V, , mean the other
characters in season
.....

two get more dialogue
since they don’t have
to wait 20 minutes
every time
Wentworth Miller
delivers a line really
slowly. Oh and
HAWKGIRL and
HAWKMAN fiew
off because they
were dull.

Now, on season
two...

RIP HUNTER

Right I’m going to
vanish for a while
because I’ve got a
better offer on
Broadchurch series
three but first I’m
going to send all you
lot to different points
in history...

THE ATOM

Why?

RIP

Because I need to
put the Waverider on
a collision course
with a nuclear missile
and it may not survive
the blast.

WHITE CANARY

But why not send us
all to the same time
and place?

RIP

What would be the
fun in that? Bye.

A big explosion
takes place. The
Atom wakes up in
prehistoric times
and is chased hy
dinosaurs until a
historian called Nate
Heywood arrives.

NATE

Hey, I’m travelling
through time
collecting Legends of
Tomorrow. We can
form a new band,
then work together
saving history from
temporal tampering.
And you can meet my
grandad. Commander
Steel, and his buddies,
the Justice Society.

THE ATOM

Sounds cool. Can we
get autographs?

NATE

And if at some point
you can use some
special serum to save

my life and turn me
into a bargain-
basement Colossus,
that’d be great.

The new team
meets the Justice
Society, and pick
up one of their
members too: Vixen.

VIXEN

I am woman. Hear
me roar. No, really,
hear me roar. I have
this ‘T can be like
animals” superpower
going on.

NATE

We thought it was
important to keep our
‘‘nature-themed
superheroine” quota
as high as possible.

VIXEN

Hey, you can talk.
Rip-shaped-hole-
filling, hair-gelled
white boy.

VOICEOVER

Next time on Legends
Of Tomorrow: some
leftover bad guys
from Arrow and The
Flash do some
ranting.

Dave Colder

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 123

y^ewsaven

THE WALKING DEAD

Or should that be walking wounded?

► UK Broadcast Fox, midseason break

► US Broadcast AMC, midseason break

► Episodes Reviewed 7.01-7.08

from grace. The Walking Dead
has sat at the top of the pop
culture pecking order for so long,
it was due a proper backlash.

And yet this year the show has
seemed to go out of its way to
alienate viewers.

The first order of business was
tying up that cliffhanger. After
spending most of the year teasing
who might get their head caved in
with a baseball bat, the show
“surprised” us by offing both
Abraham and Glenn - an outcome
that most fans had worked out
months before.

In the wake of these events it
makes sense that Rick would

spend most of the season in a
state of numb depression.
Unfortunately, that tone infects
the show as a whole. The
unexpected comedy of “The Well”
aside, it’s a half season where the
characters you like suffer and the
characters you don’t - or, more
likely, just don’t care about
(Spencer, Tara, Enid et all) - hog
the screen-time. King Ezekiel is a
lovely, surprising addition, but
where the hell is Michonne for
most of the run? Devoting entire
episodes to individual groups and
characters also has the knock on
effect of sucking momentum from
the series.

But let’s cut to the chase: the
root of the problem is Negan.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan certainly
makes an impact - but mainly
because he seems to be in every

other scene. He’s a boring villain,
invincible only because the people
who try to kill him are so utterly
useless, and his schtick (getting
angry and sweary with a big
shit- eating grin or pretending to
be nice before swearing with a big
shit- eating grin) quickly wears
thin. Turns out that, in 2016,
watching a smirking sexual
predator stomp all over everyone
else is surprisingly un-fun.

The final episode shows some
signs of life. Characters are
reunited and there’s a glimmer of
hope as Rick finally gets his mojo
back. But did we need to wait
eight weeks to get to this point?
The Walking Dead can still deliver,
but this year has highlighted the
problems that come with sticking
too closely to the source material.

Will Salmon

TRIVIA

^ Negan was originally based

- visually at least - on Henry
Rollins, according to artist
Charlie Adlard. Rollins even
auditioned for the part.

BEST LINE

^ Father Gabriel emerged as
an unexpected favourite,
especially after telling
Spencer, “What you’re saying
doesn’t make you a sinner

- but it does make you a
tremendous shit”.

DID YOU SPOT

^ Negan’s line, “you don’t
scare easy” while interrogating
Daryl is a direct callback to
Big D’s brother Merle saying
the same thing to Glenn.

WTF?T

^ So, what exactly was going
on with Rick’s axe in episode
one? One moment it’s in a
crowd of zombies, the next
it’s on top of an RV...

124 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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The greatesD
living author of

epic fantasy!

Brandon Sanderson

‘[An] engrossing

fantasy of

plotting nations,

colliding religions,
and shifting
alliances'

Publisher's Weekly

^ *^he heir to
Tolkierfs tradition
^ Sogkli^ ^

The sweeping new nove
from the beloved author of 1

® www.hoclderscape,co.uk |^/hodderscape f/hodderscape

HODDERSCAPE

y^ewsaven

DIRK GENTLY’S HOLISTIC
DETECTIVE AGENCY

As British as American football, and just as silly

► UK Broadcast Netflix, available now

► US Broadcast BBC America, finished

► Episodes Reviewed 1.01-1.03

Douglas Adams’s quintessentially
British book series might seem like
a peculiar idea, and there’s no
denying that this Netflix/BBC
America show suffers because of
this culture clash - mainly from
the dissonance between US actor
Elijah Wood as its lead, the hapless
loser Todd, and Brit Samuel
Barnett as the almost-as-hapless
titular detective, Dirk Gently.

While it’s fitting for Barnett’s
Dirk to feel as though he’s in a
different show to everybody else
- he’s an Englishman abroad, after
all - it’s also deeply distracting, as
Wood’s dramatic intensity keeps
ricocheting off Barnett’s posh

squawking and Bailing. And by
god, the end result is weird.

Then again, as anyone who’s
read the Dirk Gently books can tell
you, “weird” is appropriate. And
there’s a lot of it to get your teeth
into here, as a reluctant Todd
teams up with the manic Dirk to
investigate the disappearance of a
woman who now thinks she’s a
dog. Clues have a way of showing
up because everything in Dirk’s
life is interconnected, from the
random lady chained up above
Todd’s apartment to the
madwoman on a road-tripping
kill- spree. Add to this some kind of
conspiracy, a secret laboratory and
some bonkers. Rube Goldberg-
esque chains of events and... well,
you certainly won’t get bored.

But is it any good? If you’re a
fan of the books, you might not be

able to handle all the changes (the
fact that Dirk isn’t the main lead
is the biggest issue, though
understandable when we needed
a “sane” character like Todd to
empathise with). However, if you
can watch this as a standalone
show about a guy who ends up as
an unwilling sidekick to a British
lunatic, you might enjoy yourself
Rather like the recent Preacher,
this is an anarchic, unpredictable
and often gory delight - only
without all the dull bits where
nothing happens.

Plus you can’t deny that in
Adams’s fundamental theory that
“everything is connected”, he hit a
motherlode that works really well
on TV. Dirk Gently has already
nabbed a second season, so those
connections will roll on for a
while yet. Jayne Nelson

BEST MOMENTA

^ It’s always a bit
embarrassing when a best
moment might not even be
scripted, but Todd karate-
kicking the shower curtain
that’s stuck on his clothes
(1.02) is basically Wood
having a monumentally
funny freakout.

FAMILY TIES

^ Holistic assassin Bart
Curlish is played by Fiona
Dourif - daughter of One
Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,
Lord Of The Rings and Child’s
Play star Brad. They
appeared together in Curse
Of Chucky.

DID YOU SPOT?

^ Dirk mentions that he’s met
Thor (“He’s not nearly as
good-looking as people
say”). Thor actually appeared
in the second Dirk Gently
novel, The Long Dark
Tea-Time Of The Soul.

TRIVIA T

^ The television screens you
see at the start of each
episode keep changing - and
are worth rewinding and
watching, as you see a few
things that are interesting...

126 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

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TALES OF WAR FROM THE GRIM EH^ig
DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE -

^ bldcklibrdry.coin

^^ewscreen

„

^mmU^-AWARDS^

Celebrating the silliest and strangest moments from the month in TV

TRIBUTE OF THE MONTH®

We had a tear in our eye at Yonderlancfs lovely (and completely
on-theme) tribute to David Bowie. RIP Goblin King indeed.

With the Trickster’s colostomy bag about to burst,
Jay Garrick offers his helmet, in The Flash.

NOVELTY BEER TAP OF THE MONTH®

Bloody Marys on draft! Every horror-themed gastro pub
should have one. Thanks for the idea. The Walking Dead.

^ SEX GAMES OF THE MONTH®

“You might have the horn but I am not inserting that
anywhere, thank you very much,” says Todd in Dirk Gently.

Sorry, Supergirl, but we’re pretty sure cooking the Thanksgiving turkey with your laser
vision is a surefire route to salmonella.

Emma desperately tries to find something nice to say about Regina’s “Blue Period”
art exhibition in Once Upon A Time.

Dorothea puts on lamest puppet show ever in Class.

In Humans, Green Arrow should have gone to Specsavers.

Lucifer and Ella practise their tango in Lucifer.

MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 127

MPROVE YOUR SFX LIFE
EVERY FRIDAY!

>X<

A round-up of the holfesf sci-fi and fantasy news from GamesRadar+

Exciusive compefifions III Updates on upcoming mag confent III More!

1977 ^

How much do you know about the year that changed everything?

Quizmaster Nick Setchfield, Features Editor

QUESTION 1

which future Dallas star played
the lead role in Man From
Atlantis?

QUESTION 2

Star sky And Hutch’s David Soul
had a number one with “Silver
Lady”. Which 1967 Star Trek
episode did he appear in?

QUESTIONS

which of these strips did not
appear in the first issue of 2000
AD? a) Dan Dare b) Harlem Heroes
c) Judge Dredd

PICTURE QUESTION

Steven Spielberg cast which
French New Wave director as
Lacombe in Close Encounters Of
The Third Kind?

QUESTIONS

which 1977 Philip K Dick novel
finally came to the screen in 2006,
directed by Richard Linklater?

QUESTIONS

which James Bond star popped
up in John Landis’s Kentucky Fried
Movie?

QUESTION 7

ITV’s teatime chiller Children Of
The Stones was filmed in which
English village?

PICTURE QUESTION

Capricorn One was about a
government conspiracy to fake
a landing... where?

QUESTIONS

which of these was not a movie
this year? a) Kingdom Of The
Spiders b) Empire Of The Ants
c) Realm Of The Beetles?

Howdidyoudc)?

QUESTION 10

PICTURE QUESTION

QUESTION 15

QUESTION 19

who played the Arabian
adventurer in SinbadAnd The Eye
Of The Tiger?

QUESTION 11

what was the title of ’77’s sequel
to ’75 dino flick The Land That
Time Forgot?

QUESTION 12

Leela appeared for the
first time in Doctor
Who. What was the
name of her tribe?

QUESTION 13

George RR Martin’s first
novel was published this year.
What was it called?

Eraserhead, starring Jack Nance,
marked the feature film directing
debut of which auteur of the
weird?

QUESTION 16

which TV show saw a group of
people whisked through the
Bermuda Triangle to a
strange new dimension?

QUESTIONS

Joanna Lumley played
Purdey in The New
Avengers. What
inspired the name of
her character?

QUESTION 18

QUESTION 14

which iconic sci-fi sound opens
Ash’s 1996 album 1977?

Former squeeze of Prince Andrew
Koo Stark’s scenes were cut from
Star Wars. Which of Luke’s
friends did she play?

Which German-born actor
played sinister shipping magnate
Karl Stromberg in James Bond
blockbuster The Spy Who Loved
Me?

QUESTION 20

PICTURE QUESTIQN

Who played HG Wells’s crazed
scientist in this year’s film
adaptation of The Island Of Dr
Moreau?

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Pop gold or chart disgrace?

^0-5

Paul Nicholas

^ 6-10

Brotherhood Of Man

^ 11-15

Showaddywaddy

^ 16-19

Sjr Abba

^20

David Bowie

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MARCH 2017 1 SFX MAGAZINE I 129

Personal recollections of cherished sci-fi

THE USS KELVIN

' Richard Edwards, Editor •

t’s easy to forget just how adrift the Star Trek franchise was

a decade ago. The mediocre Nemesis had homhed at the
cinema. Enterprise didn’t manage to make it past a fourth
season. It was a property in hig need of a spectacular rescue.

So JJ Abrams was arguably taking on his own Kobayashi
Maru test when he agreed to reboot the series. By his own
admission, he’d always preferred Star Wars to Trek, but he had the
guts to bring something new to the table - a more muscular, action-
oriented take on the Federation, that kept tachyon pulses and holodecks
to a minimum. With the opening scene of Star Trek he completely nailed
it, a sequence that ranks among the best space-set action ever put on
screen. In fact, I don’t think anything in the rebooted Trek movies has
even come close to the brilliance of those wonderful first 10 minutes.

The movie’s pre-publicity made a big thing of bringing back Kirk and
Spock, but here they were simply supporting players - the old Spock
“Prime” just a projection on board the Romulan ship, James T Kirk still
in his mother’s womb. Instead, we’re transported directly to the bridge
of the previously unmentioned USS Kelvin, crewed by unknown
Starfleet personnel in unfamiliar uniforms. We’re already a good way

into the sequence when we learn that the young first officer
elevated to the captain’s chair for a few short minutes has a very
famous surname...

Abrams instantly establishes his own visual language light
years away from traditional Trek, with audacious camera moves
that discard conventional notions of up and down, a crew member
sucked into the dead silence of space, and yes, that infamous lens flare.

But for all the state -of-the -heart blockbuster brilliance, I love the
USS Kelvin sequence for its emotional power. We barely know George
and Winona Kirk, yet Star Trek’s opening has me welling up every time
I see it. The moment George realises he’ll have to sacrifice himself to
save his family and 800 shipmates, the birth of baby Jim, that teary
conversation about what to name him (“Tiberius? That’s the worst!”)...
It’s all perfectly calibrated to tug at the heartstrings, while being 100
per cent relevant to the plot and having the convenient side-effect of
resetting the timeline. I can’t think of a better 10 minutes in the history
of blockbuster cinema. ®

Rich struggled with lens flare on his drive to work this morning.

FactAttadi!

The Kelvin is named after
Abrams’ maternal
grandfather, Harry - the
NCC-0514 registry number
references his birthday.

^ The stardate format here is
different to what’s in the TV
shows. 2233.4 is equivalent to
4 January 2233; the stardates
in Next Gen are in the 40,000s!

^ Jim Kirk will cross paths
with his dad, with Chris
Hemsworth set to return for
the fourth movie as “a man he
never had a chance to meet”.

^ Composer Michael
Giacchino struggled with the
theme, until a producer told
him, “Write a score for a film
about two people that meet.”

130 I SFX MAGAZINE I MARCH 2017

Douglas Adams’ classic Doctor Who

story The Pirate Flonet has finally
been novelised by JAMES GOSS!

A STORY BY ^

DOUGLAS ADAMS

DOUGLA

With extra material and notes from
Adams.himself, this is essential
\ readingfor fans of all ages

NOW OPEN AT THE 02

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The

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